THE BOERS IN WAR 




A Boer great-grandfather. 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



THE STORY OF THE BRITISH-BOER WAR OF 
1899-1900, AS SEEN FROM THE BOER SIDE, 
WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE MEN AND 
METHODS OF THE REPUBLICAN ARMIES 

BY 

HOWARD C. HILLEGAS 

Author of Oom FauV s People 

ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 
AND A MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA 




NEW YORK 
APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1900 



38167 



AUG 24 1900 

SECOND COPV. 

0»Hverad to 

OKOtR DIVISION, 

SEP 6 I9nn 



Copyright, 1900, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



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PREFACE 



The war in South Africa spread over such 
a vast area of territory, and included so many 
battles, that no one man can hope to present a 
truthful picture of all the interesting events in 
one volume. It has been my aim, in the follow- 
ing pages, to show the Boer army, country, and 
people as they existed prior to the British oc- 
cupation of Pretoria, and an earnest effort has 
been made to represent men and matters as 
they presented themselves to the eyes of an 
American. Personal feeling has been elimi- 
nated, and the Boers' apparent faults have 
been portra3^ed as truthfully as their good 
features. To those earnest friends of the 
Boers, who can see no fault in them, certain 
parts of the book will come as a rude shock, 
while other parts may offend Britons. There 
were brave Boers as well as brave Englishmen, 



vi THE BOERS IN WAR 

but neither army could claim a total lack of 
cowardice, and consequently some of these 
pages may wound the sensibilities of those 
who allow their sentiment to overrule their 
good judgment. 

In referring to the Boer army as consisting 
at no time of more than thirty thousand armed 
men I speak with the assurance of being right. 
Mr. Douglas Story of the London Daily Mail, 
Mr. Thomas F. Millard of the New York 
Herald, Mr. John O. Knight of the San Fran- 
cisco Call, and I visited all the principal laagers 
and commandos on the various frontiers, and 
made earnest efforts to secure an accurate ac- 
count of the number of men engaged. We had 
the assistance of the war department and all the 
generals, but even with their help the results 
never exceeded thirty thousand burghers in the 
field. 

The Boers may not be victorious in the war, 
but they have made as brave a struggle as did 
our Revolutionary forefathers. Whether their 
Government will be submerged as a result of 
the war will depend upon the magnanimity of 
the British people ; but no one who has been 
with the burghers in the field, and has heard 



PREFACE 



Vll 



their expressions of sentiment, will believe that 
South Africa will ever again have any affection 
for its mother country. The Boers of the Trans- 
vaal and the Orange Free State, who were wont 
to celebrate the Queen's birthday with as much 
gusto as the most patriotic Englishmen, will not 
be content to live under the British flag, and 
the Cape Colonists have determined to possess 
an emblem of their own. Some day a man will 
arise who can lead the Afrikanders, and then 
there will be a united, a peaceful South Africa 
under a South African flag. 

Howard C. Hillegas. 

Paris, July^ igoo. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — The Way to the Boer Country . . . i 
Delagoa Bay and the blockaded port — Lorenzo 
Marques, the Boers' only friend -The journey to Pre- 
toria—The capital and its scenes— The consuls and their 
work— The last meeting of the Volksraads. 

II. — From Farm to Battlefield .... 29 
The lion hunter of old and his modern garb — The 
feud between the lions and the hunters — The conference 
and the oath — The gathering of the hunters — The jour- 
ney to the battle ground. 

III. — The Composition of the Boer Army , . 47 
The citizen soldiers of the republic — Young men in 
the army— The Penkop Regiment— Grandfathers and 
great-grandfathers in the ranks -The fighting takhaar — 
The Boers' horse— Religious feeling in the army. 

IV. — The Army Organization 76 

The superfluity of generals — The election of officers - 
Influences of popularity, religion, and politics — The 
Krijgsraads -Boer pickets and scouts. 

V. — The Boer Military System . . . . gg 

The disparity between the armies — A national and 
natural system of warfare— The burghers' adaptability 
and mobihty — The retreat of the three generals— Boers' 
bravery. 



X THE BOERS IN WAR 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VI. — The Boers in Battle 125 

Boer forces always outnumbered— A battle in which 
advantages were equal— The fight at Sannaspost — The 
army trekking— The arrival on the battlefield— The first 
shot of the engagement — The capture of men and guns 
— The battle in progress— Singing the Soldiers of the 
Queen. 

VII. — The Generals of the War . . . .154 
The great work they accomplished— Commandant- 
General Joubert and his work— Cronje and his capture 
at Paardeberg— Botha's rapid advancement from burgher 
to commandant general— Generals Lucas Meyer, De 
Wet, and De la Rey. 

VIII. — The War Presidents . . . . . . 202 

President Kruger and his work during the war— His 
visits to the burghers — The oration over Joubert's 
body— His departure from Pretoria — President Steyn 
and his work in the Free State. 

IX, — Foreigners in the War 231 

The arrival of the volunteers -The objects of the for- 
eigners — The soldiers of fortune, the looter, and the 
patriot — Americans aiding the republics — The Irish 
Brigade and the American scouts. 

X. — Boer Women in the War 260 

The Boer woman's legacy — Her patriotism before the 
war— ^ Assisting an embarrassed Government — Baking 
bread, making clothing, caring for the wounded — Fight- 
ing in the trenches — Voting to join commandos — The 
women of Pretoria. 

XL — Incidents of the War 283 

Tragic and amusing spectacles in battles — The burgh- 
ers' mistake at Magersfontein — Rhodes's lone follower 
at Colenso — The young burghers playing " I spy" with 
British shells at Ladysmith— Baden-Powell's amusing 
letter — A peer in distress. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Boer great-grandfather .... Frontispiece 

Foreign military attaches ....... g 

A group of British prisoners in Pretoria . . . -15 

Physicians of American Red Cross corps . . . . i8 

Military prison, Pretoria, where British officers were con- 
fined .......... 21 

Adelbert S. Hay, United States consul at Pretoria . . 24 

American consulate, Pretoria ...... 26 

Arrival of a commando at Majuba Hill .... 32 

Meeting of a ward commando ...... 38 

A district commando awaiting a railway train for embarka- 
tion . 41 

Crossing the border into Natal ...... 45 

A Boer burgher ......... 48 

Takhaar and penkop fought side by side . . . -51 

A section of the Penkop Regiment • • • • • 53 

An old takhaar 60 

Type of uniformed Boer artillerist ..... 64 

Men accompanied by their native servants .... 67 

A group of takhaars 73 

Election of a field cornet 80 

A Boer picket in early morning ...... 93 

The battlefield at Elandslaagte ...... 108 

A burgher and his breakfast 113 

Plan of Sannaspost battlefield 139 

General Snyman and Commandant Botha . . . .156 



Xll 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



take 



after 



Commandos in laager at Mafeking 

General Piet J. Joubert 

In the schanzes near Ladysmith . 

A group in General Cronje's army 

Commandant-General Louis Botha 

General and Mrs. Lucas Meyer . 

Commandant-General Christian De Wet 

Nicholson's Nek, where twelve hundred British were 

prisoners . . . . . 

General Peter De Wet 

Paul Kruger 

General Joubert's camp at Glencoe 

President Kruger in war time .... 

President Kruger's private car, used as the capitol 

evacuation of Pretoria 

F. W. Reitz, Secretary of State of the Transvaal . 

President Steyn with his burghers 

Hon. Webster Davis, travelling in President Kruger'i 

vate car 

A Cossack fighting with the Boers 

Colonel Maximofif, of the Russian corps 

General De La Rey and Colonel Guorko, Russian military 

attache ....... 

President Kruger receiving the American scouts 
Colonel Blake, of the Irish Brigade 
Captain Richiardi, of the Italian scouts 
Four generations of the Kruger family 

Mrs. General Meyer 

Wife and children of John Steyl . 

The Misses Eloff 

General and Mrs. Louis Botha 

Mrs. General Meyer preparing her husband's breakfast 

Spion Kop after the fight 

Spion Kop battlefield . 



s pri- 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



CHAPTER I 

THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 

Immediately after war was declared between 
Great Britain and the Boers of the Transvaal 
and the Orange Free State the two South 
iVfrican republics became shut off, in a great 
measure, from the rest of the civilized world. 
The cables and the great ocean steamship lines 
which connected South Africa with Europe and 
America were owned by British companies, and 
consequently they were employed by the British 
Government for its own purposes. Nothing 
which might in any way benefit the Boers was 
allowed to pass over these lines, and as far as it 
was possible the British Government isolated the 
republics so that the outside world could have 
no communication of any sort with them. With 
the exception of a small strip of coast land on 
the Indian Ocean the two republics were com- 
pletely surrounded by British territory, and 



2 THE BOERS IN WAR 

consequently it was not a difficult matter for the 
great empire to curtail the liberties of the Boers 
to as large an extent as pleased the men who 
conducted the campaign. The small strip of 
coast land, however, was the property of a 
neutral nation, and therefore could not be 
used for British purposes of stifling the Boer 
countries ; but the nation which ruled the waves 
exhausted every means to make the Boers' air- 
hole as small as possible by placing a number 
of war ships outside the entrance of Delagoa 
Bay, and by establishing a blockade of the port 
of Lorenzo Marques. 

Lorenzo Marques, in itself, was valueless to 
the Boers, for it had always been nothing more 
than a vampire feeding upon the Transvaal, but 
as an outlet to the sea, and as a haven for foreign 
ships bearing men, arms, and encouragement, it 
was invaluable. In the hands of the Boers Dela- 
goa Bay Avould have been worse than useless, 
for the British war ships could have taken pos- 
session of it and sealed it tightly on the first day 
of the war ; but as a Portuguese possession it 
was the only friend that the Boers were able to 
find during their long period of need. Without 
it the Boers would have been unable to hold 
any intercourse with foreign countries, no en- 
voys could have been despatched, no volunteers 
could have entered the country, and they would 
have been ignorant of the opinion of the world 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 3 

— a factor in the brave resistance against the 
enemy which was by no means infinitesimal. 
Delagoa Bay was the one window through 
which the Boers could look at the world, and 
through which the world could watch the brave 
struggle of the farmer citizens of the veld re- 
publics. 

The Portuguese authorities at Delagoa Bay 
long ago established a reputation for adroitness 
in extracting revenues whenever and wherever it 
was possible to find a stranger within their gates, 
but the war afforded them such excellent oppor- 
tunities as they had never enjoyed before. Being 
the gate of the Boer country was a humanitarian 
privilege, but it also was a remunerative busi- 
ness, and never since Vasco da Gama discovered 
the port were there so many choice facilities 
afforded for increasing the revenue of the colony. 
Nor was the Latin's mind slow in concoct- 
ing schemes for filling the Portuguese coffers 
when the laws were lax on the subject, for it 
was the simplest expedient to frame a regula- 
tion suitable for everj^ new condition that arose. 
The Portuguese was willing to be the medium 
between the Boers and the people of other parts 
of the earth, but he demanded and received a 
large percentage of the profits. 

When the Avorks of the Johannesburg gold 
district were closed down, and the Portuguese 
heard that they would no longer receive a com- 



4 THE BOERS IN WAR 

pulsory contribution of a dollar from every na- 
tive who crossed the border to work in the 
mines, they felt ill at ease, on account of the 
great decrease in the amount of public revenues, 
but it did not worry them for any considerable 
length of time. They met the situation by impos- 
ing a tax of two dollars upon every one of the 
thousands of natives who returned from the 
mines to their homes in Portuguese territor}^ 
About the same time the Uitlanders from the 
Transvaal reached Lorenzo Marques, and in 
order to calm the Portuguese mind every one 
of the thousands of men and women who took 
part in that exodus was compelled to pay a tran- 
sit tax ranging from two to five dollars, accord- 
ing to the size of the tip tendered to the official. 
When the van of the foreign volunteers 
reached the port there was a new situation to 
be dealt with, and again the principle of '' When 
in doubt, impose a tax," was satisfactorily em- 
ployed. Men who had just arrived in steamers, 
and who had never seen Portuguese territory, 
were obliged to secure a certificate indicating 
that they had not been inhabitants of the local 
jail during the preceding six months ; a certifi- 
cate from the consular representative of their 
country showing that the}^ possessed good char- 
acters ; another from the governor general to 
show that they did not purpose going into the 
Transvaal to carry arms ; a fourth from the 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



5 



local Transvaal consul to indicate that he held 
no objections to the traveller's desire to enter 
the Boer country ; and one or two other pass- 
ports equally weighty in their bearing on the 
subject were necessary 43ef ore a person was able 
to leave the town. Each one of these certificates 
was to be secured only upon the payment of a 
certain number of thousand reis, and at an ad- 
ditional expenditure of time and nervous energy, 
for none of the officials could speak a word of 
any language except Portuguese, and all the 
applicants were men of other nationalities and 
tongues. The expense in connection with the 
certificates was more than five dollars for every 
person, and as there were thousands of travellers 
into the Boer countries while the war continued, 
the revenues of the Government were corre- 
spondingly great. To crown it all, the Portu- 
guese imposed the same tax upon all travellers 
who came into the country from the Transvaal 
with the intention of sailing to other ports. 
The Government could not be charged with 
favouritism in the matter of taxation, for every 
man, woman, and child who stepped on Portu- 
guese soil was similarly treated. There was no 
charge for entering the country, but the jail 
yawned for him who refused to pay when leav- 
ing it. 

Not unlike the patriots in Cape Town and 
Durban, the hotel and shop keepers of Lorenzo 



6 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Marques took advantage of the presence of 
many strangers and made extraordinary efforts 
to secure the residue of the money which did 
not fall into the coffers of the Government. At 
the Cardoza Hotel, the only establishment 
worthy of the name, a tax of five dollars was 
levied for sleeping on a bare floor ; drivers of 
street cabs scorned any amount less than a 
golden sovereign for carrying one passenger 
to the consulates ; lemonades were fifty cents 
each at the kiosks ; and physicians charged 
fifteen dollars a call when travellers remained 
in the town several days and contracted the 
deadly coast fever. At the customhouse duties 
of several dollars were levied upon foreign flags, 
unless the officer was liberally tipped, in which 
event it was not necessary to open the luggage. 
It was a veritable harvest for every one who 
chose to take advantage of the opportunities 
offered, and there were few who did not make 
the foreigners their victims. 

The blockade by the British warships placed 
a premium upon dishonesty, and the majority 
of those who gained most by it were British 
subjects. The vessels which succeeded in pass- 
ing the blockading war ships were invariably 
consigned to Englishmen, and without exception 
the consignees were unpatriotic enough to sell 
the supplies to agents employed by the Trans- 
vaal Government. Just as Britons sold guns and 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 7 

ammunition to the Boers before the war, these 
men of the same nation made exorbitant profits 
on supplies which were necessary to the burgher 
army. Lorenzo Marques was filled with men 
who were taking advantage of the state of af- 
fairs to grow wealthy by means which were not 
thoroughly legitimate, and the leaders in almost 
every enterprise of that nature were British 
subjects, although there were not a few Ger- 
mans, Americans, and Frenchmen who succeed- 
ed in making the fortunes they deserved for re- 
maining in such a horrible pest hole. 

The railroad from Lorenzo Marques to Ros- 
sana Garcia, at the Transvaal border, was rather 
interesting from its historical significance than 
comfortable for travelling purposes. As the 
train passed through the dry, dusty, and unin- 
teresting country which was even too poor and 
unhealthy for the blacks, the mind speculated 
upon the question whether the Swiss judges 
who decided the litigation concerning the road 
would have spent ten years in reaching a con- 
clusion if they had been compelled to conduct 
their deliberations within sight of the line. The 
land adjoining the railroad was level, well tim- 
bered and well watered, and the vast tracts of 
fine grass gave the impression that it might be 
an excellent country for farming ; but it was in 
the belt known as the fev^er district, and white 
men avoided it as they would a cholera-infested 



8 THE BOERS IN WAR 

city. Shortly before the train arrived at the 
English river several lofty whitestone pyramids 
on either side of the track were passed, and the 
Transvaal was reached. A long iron bridge 
spanning the "river was crossed and the train 
arrived at the first station in the Boer country, 
Koomatipoort. 

Courteous Boer officials entered the train 
and requested the passengers to disembark with 
all their luggage for the purpose of custom ex- 
amination. No gratuities were accepted there 
as at Lorenzo Marques, and nothing escaped the 
vigilance of the bearded inspectors. Trunks 
and luggage were carefully scrutinized, letters 
read line by line and word for word, revolvers 
and ammunition promptly confiscated if not de- 
clared, and even the clothing of the passengers 
was faithfully examined. Passports were closely 
investigated, and when everything appeared to 
be thoroughly satisfactory a white cross was 
chalked on the boots of the passengers and they 
were free to proceed farther inland. The field 
cornet of the district was one of the few Boers 
at the station and he performed the duties of 
his office by introducing himself to certain pas- 
sengers whom be believed to be foreign vol- 
unteers and offering them gratuitous railway 
tickets to Pretoria. No effort was made to con- 
ceal the fact that the volunteers were welcome 
in the country, and nothing was left undone to 




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lO THE BOERS IN WAR 

make the foreigners realize that their presence 
was appreciated. 

After Koomatipoort was passed the train 
crept slowly into the mountainous district where 
huge peaks pierced the clouds and gigantic 
boulders overhung the tracks. Narrow defiles 
stretched away in all directions, and the sounds 
of cataracts in the Crocodile River flowing 
alongside the iron path drowned the roar of the 
train. Flowering, vari-coloured plants, huge 
cacti, and thick tropical vegetation lined the 
banks of the river, and occasionally the thatched 
roof of a negro's hut peered out over the un- 
dergrowth to indicate that a few human beings 
chose that wild region for their abode. Hour 
after hour the train crept along narrow ledges 
up the mountains' sides, then dashed down de- 
clines and out upon small level plains, which, 
with the surrounding and towering eminences, 
had the appearance of vast green bowls. In 
that impregnable region lay the small town of 
Machadodorp, which later became the capital 
of the Transvaal. A few houses of corrugated 
iron, a pretty railway station, and much scenery 
served as a worthy description of the town at 
the junction of the purposed railway to the gold 
fields of Lydenberg. 

After a journey of twelve hours through the 
fever country the train reached the western 
limit of that belt, and rested for the night in a 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY n 

small, green, cup-shaped valley bearing the de- 
scriptive name of VVaterval Onder — '' Under the 
waterfall/' The weary passengers found more 
corrugated iron buildings and the best hotel in 
South Africa. The host, Monsieur Mathis, a 
French-Boer, and his excellent establishment 
came as a breath of fresh air to a stifling 
traveller on the desert, and long will they live 
in the memories of the thousands of persons 
who journeyed over the railroad during the 
war. After the monotonous fare of an east 
coast steamer, and the mythical meals of a 
Lorenzo Marques hotel, the roast venison, the 
fresh milk and eggs of Mathis were as welcome 
as the odour of the roses that filled the valley. 

The beginning of the second day's journey 
was characterized by a ride up and along the 
sides of a magnificent gorge through which the 
waters of the Crocodile River rushed from the 
lofty plateau of the high veld to the wildernesses 
of the fever country, and filled that miniature 
South African Switzerland with m3^riads of 
rainbows. A long, curved, and inclined tun- 
nel near the top of the mountain led to the 
undulating plains of the Transvaal — a marvel- 
lously rapid transition from a region filled with 
Nature's wildest panoramas to one that con- 
tained not even a tree or rock or cliff to re- 
lieve the monotony of the landscape. On the 
one side of this natural boundary line was an 



12 THE BOERS IN WAR 

immense territory every square mile of which 
contained mountain passes which a handful of 
Boers could hold against an invading army ; on 
the other side there was hardly a rock behind 
which a burgher rifleman could conceal him- 
self. Here herds of cattle and flocks of sheep 
instead of wild beasts sped away from the roar 
of the train ; here was the daub and wattle cot- 
tage of the farmer instead of the thatched hut 
of the native savage. 

Small towns of corrugated iron and mud- 
brick homes and shops appeared at long in- 
tervals on the veld ; grass fires displayed the 
presence of the Boer farmer with his herds; 
and the long ox teams slowly rolling over the 
plain signified that not all the peaceful pursuits 
of a small people at war with a great nation 
had been abandoned. The coal mines at Bel- 
fast, with their towering stacks and clouds of 
smoke, gave the first evidence of the country's 
wondrous underground wealth, and then farther 
on in the journey came the small city of Mid- 
dleburg with its slate-coloured corrugated iron 
roofs in marked contrast to the green veld grass 
surrounding it. Here appeared armed and ban- 
doliered Boers, prepared to join their country- 
men in the field, with wounded friends and sad- 
faced women to bid farewell to them. While 
the train lay waiting at the station small com- 
mandos of burghers came dashing through the 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



13 



dusty streets, hustled their horses into trucks at 
the end of the passenger train, and in a few 
moments were mingling with the foreign vol- 
unteers in the coaches. Gray-haired Boers 
gravely bade adieu to their wives and children, 
lovers embraced their weeping sweethearts, and 
the train moved on toward Pretoria and the bat- 
tlefields where these men were to risk their lives 
for the existence of their country. 

Historic ground, where Briton and Boer had 
fought before, came in view. Bronkhorst Spruit, 
where a British commander led more than one 
hundred of his men to death in 1880, lay to 
the left of the road in a little wooded ravine. 
Farther on toward Pretoria appeared rocky 
kopjes where afterward the Boers, retreating 
from the capital city, gathered their disheart- 
ened forces and resisted the advance of the 
enemy. Eerste Fabriken was a hamlet hardly 
large enough to make an impression upon the 
memory, but it marked a battlefield where the 
burghers fought desperately. Children were 
then gathering peaches from the trees whose 
roots drank the blood of heroes months after- 
ward. Several miles farther on were the hills 
on the outskirts of Pretoria, where, in the war 
of 1881, the Boer laagers sent forth men to en- 
compass the city and to prevent the British 
besieged in it from escaping. It was ground 
hallowed in Boer history since the early Voor- 



14 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



trekkers crossed the ridges of the Magaliesberg 
and sought protection from the savage hordes 
of Moselekatse in the fertile valley of the Aapjes 
River. 

Pretoria in war time was most peaceful. In 
the days before the commencement of hostili- 
ties it was a city of peace as contrasted with 
the metropolis, Johannesburg, and its warring 
citizens, but when cannon were roaring on the 
frontier Pretoria itself seemed to escape even 
the echoes. After the first commandos had de- 
parted the city streets were deserted, and only 
women and children gathered at the bulletin 
boards to learn the fate of the burgher armies. 
The stoeps of houses and cottages were de- 
serted of the bearded yeomanry, and the halls 
of the Government buildings resounded only 
with the tread of those who were not old or 
strong enough to bear arms. The long ox 
wagons which were so familiar and common 
in the streets were not so frequently seen, but 
whenever one of them rolled toward the market 
square it was a Boer woman who cracked the 
rawhide whip over the heads of the oxen. Pre- 
toria was the same quaint city as of old, but it 
lacked the men who were its most distinguish- 
ing feature. The black-garbed Volksraad mem- 
bers, the officials, and the old retired farmers 
who were wont to discuss politics on the stoeps 
of the Capitol and the Transvaal hotel were ab- 







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l6 THE BOERS IN WAR 

sent. Inquiries concerning them could be ad- 
dressed only to women and children, and the 
replies invariably were, '' They are on com- 
mando," or '' They were killed in battle." 

The scenes of activity in the city were few 
in number, and they were chiefly in connection 
with the arrival of foreign volunteers and the 
transit of burgher commandos on the way to 
the field. The Grand Hotel and the Transvaal 
Hotel, the latter of which was conducted by 
the Government for the temporary entertain- 
ment of the volunteers, were constantly filled 
with throngs of foreigners, comprising soldiers 
of fortune. Red Cross delegations, visitors, cor- 
respondents and contractors, and almost every 
language except that of the Boers was heard in 
the corridors. Occasionally a Boer burgher on 
leave of absence from the front appeared at the 
hotels for a respite from army rations or to at- 
tend the funeral of a comrade in arms, but the 
foreigners were always predominant. Across 
the street, in the war department, there were 
busy scenes when the volunteers applied for 
their equipments, and frequently there were 
stormy spectacles when the European tastes 
of the men were offended by the equipment 
offered by the department officials. Men who 
desired swords and artistic paraphernalia for 
themselves and their horses felt slighted when 
the scant but serviceable equipment of a Boer 



i 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 17 

burgher was offered to them ; but sulking could 
not remedy the matter, and usually they were 
content to accept whatever was given to them. 
Former officers in European armies, noblemen, 
and even professional men were constantly ar- 
riving in the city, and all seemed to be of the 
same opinion that commissions in the Boer army 
could be had for the asking. Some of these had 
their minds disabused with good grace, and went 
to the field as common burghers; others sulked 
for several weeks but finally joined a commando, 
and a few returned to their homes without hav- 
ing heard the report of a gun. For those who 
chose to remain behind and enjoy the peaceful- 
ness of Pretoria there was always enough of 
novelty and excitement among the foreigners 
to compensate partly for missing the events in 
the field. 

The army contractors make their presence 
felt in all countries which are engaged in war, 
and Pretoria was filled with them. They were 
in the railwa}^ trains running to and from Lo- 
renzo Marques, in the hotel corridors, in all the 
Government departments, and everywhere in 
the city. A few of the naturalized Boers, who 
were most denunciatorv of the British before 
the war and urged their fellow-countrymen to 
resort to arms, succeeded in evading the call to 
the field, and Avere most energetic in supplying 
bread and supplies to the Government. Nor 



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THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



19 



was their patriotism dimmed by many reverses 
of the army, but they selfishly demanded that 
the war should be continued indefinitely. Euro- 
peans and Americans who enjoyed the protec- 
tion of the Government in times of peace were 
transformed by war into grasping, insinuating 
contractors, revelling in the country's misfor- 
tune. Englishmen, unworthy of the name, en- 
riched themselves by furnishing sinews of war 
to their country's enemy, and in order to 
secure greater wealth sought to prolong the 
war by cheering disheartened Boers and ex- 
pressing faith in their final success. The cham- 
bers of the Government building were filled 
with men who had horses, wagons, flour, forage, 
and clothing to offer at exorbitant prices, and in 
thousands of instances the embarrassed Govern- 
ment was obliged to pay whatever sums were 
demanded. Hand in hand with the contractors 
were the speculators, who were taking advan- 
tage of the absence of the leading officials to 
secure valuable concessions, mining claims, and 
even gold mines. Before the war, when hordes 
of speculators and concession seekers thronged 
the city, the scene was pathetic enough, but 
when all the shrewd Raad members were at 
the front and unable to guard their country's 
interests, the picture was dark and pitiful. 

Pretoria seemed to have but one mood dur- 
ing the war. It was never deeply despondent 
3 



20 THE BOERS IN WAR 

nor gay. There was a sort of funereal atmos- 
phere throughout the city whether its residents 
were rejoicing over a Spion Kop or suffering 
from the dejection of a Paardeberg. It was the 
same grim throng of old men, women, and chil- 
dren who watched the processions of prisoners 
of war and attended the funerals at the quaint 
little Dutch church in the centre of the city. 
The finest victories of the army never changed 
the appearance of the city or the mood of its 
inhabitants. There were no parades or shout- 
ing when a victory was announced, and there 
was the same stoical indifference when the news 
of a bitter defeat was received. A victory was 
celebrated in the Dutch church by the singing 
of psalms, and a defeat by the offering of pray- 
ers for the success of the army. 

The thousands of British subjects who were 
allowed to remain in the Transvaal, being of a 
less phlegmatic race, were not so calm when a 
victory of their nation's army was announced, 
and when the news of Cronje's surrender reached 
them they celebrated the event with almost as 
much gusto as if they had not been in the ene- 
my's country. A fancy-dress ball was held in 
Johannesburg in honour of the event, and a 
champagne dinner was given within a few yards 
of the Government buildings in Pretoria ; but a 
few days later all the celebrants were transported 
across the border by order of the Government. 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



21 



One of the pathetic features of Pretoria was 
the Boers' expression of faith in foreign media- 
tion or intervention. At the outset of hostilities 
it seemed unreasonable that any European na- 
tion or America would risk a war with Great 




Military prison, Pretoria, where British officers were confined. 



Britain for the purpose of assisting the Boers, 
yet there was hardly one burgher who did not 
cling steadfastly to the opinion that the war 
would be ended in such a manner. The idea 
had evidently been rooted in their mind that 
Russia would take advantage of Great Britain's 



22 THE BOERS IN WAR 

entanglement in South Africa to occupy Herat 
and northern India, and when a newspaper item 
to that effect appeared it Avas gravely presumed 
to indicate the end of the war. Some overzeal- 
ous Irishmen assured the Boers that, in the event 
of a South African war, their fellow-countrymen 
in the United States would invade Canada, and 
involve Great Britain in an imbroglio across the 
Atlantic in order to save British America. For 
a few weeks the chimera buoyed up the Boers, 
but when nothing more than an occasional news- 
paper rumour was heard concerning it, the ris- 
ing in Ashanti was looked upon as being the 
hoped-for boon. The departure of the three 
delegates to Europe and America was also an 
encouraging sign to them, and it was firmly be- 
lieved that they would be able to induce France, 
Russia, or America to offer mediation or inter- 
vention. The two Boer newspapers, the Preto- 
ria Volksstem and the Johannesburg Standard 
and Diggers' News, dwelt at length upon every 
favourable token of foreign assistance, however 
trifling, and attempted to strengthen hopes 
which, at hardly any time, seemed capable of 
realization. It was not until after the war had 
been in progress for more than six months that 
the Boers saw the futility of placing faith in 
foreign aid, and thereafter they fought like 
stronger men. 

The consuls who represented the foreign 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



23 



Governments at Pretoria, and through whom 
the Boers made representations for peace, were 
an exceptionally able body of men, and their 
duties were as varied as they were arduous. 
The French and German consuls were busied 
with the care of the vast mining interests of 
their countrymen, besides the partial guardian- 
ship of the hundreds of French and German 
volunteers in the Boer army. They were called 
upon to entertain noblemen as well as bank- 
rupts, to bandage wounds and bury the dead, to 
find lost relatives and to care for widows and 
orphans. In times of peace the duties of a con- 
sul in Pretoria Avere not light, but during hos- 
tilities they were tenfold heavier. To the 
American consul, Adelbert S. Hay, and his 
associate, John G. Coolidge, fell more work 
than to all the others combined. Besides car- 
ing for the American interests in the country, 
Consul Hay was charged with the guardian- 
ship of the six thousand British prisoners of 
war in the city, as well as with the care of the 
financial interests of British citizens. Every 
one of the thousands of letters to and from the 
prisoners was examined in the American con- 
sulate, so that they might carry with them no 
breach of neutrality ; almost a hundred thou- 
sand dollars and tons of luxuries were distributed 
by him to the prisoners, while the letters and 
cablegrams concerning the health and where- 



M 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



s^»m*\««:«T^^^?i^»%;*i*t-«;«^EmiFmm»mT«m^#*«w*itm«m«^^^#^.^ 




Adelbert S. Hay, United States consul at Pretoria. 



abouts of soldiers which reached him every 
week were far in excess of the number of com- 
munications which arrived at the consulate in a 
year of peaceful times. Consul Hay was in 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



25 



good favour with the Boer Government, not- 
withstanding his earnest efforts to perform his 
duties with regard to the British prisoners and 
interests ; and of the many consuls who have 
represented the United States in South Africa 
none performed his duties more intelligently or 
with more credit to his country. 

One of the most interesting and important 
events in Pretoria, before the British occupation 
of the city, was the meeting of the Volksraads 
on May 7th. It was a gathering of the warriors 
who survived the war which they themselves 
had brought about seven months before, and 
although the enemy to whom they had thrown 
down the gauntlet was at their gates, they were 
as resolute and determined as on that October 
day when they voted to pit the Boer farmer 
against the British lion. The seats of many of 
those who took part in that memorable meet- 
ing were filled with palms and evergreens to 
mark the patriots' death, but the vierkleur and 
the cause remained to spur the living. Gen- 
eral, commandants, and burghers, no longer in 
the grimy costumes of the battlefield, but in the 
black garb of the legislator, filled the circle of 
chairs ; bandoliered burghers, consuls and mili- 
tary attaches in spectacular uniforms, business 
men, and women with tear-stained cheeks filled 
the auditorium, while on the ofificial benches 
were the heads of departments and the Execu- 



26 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



tive Council, State Secretary Reitz, and Gen- 
eral Schalk Burger. The Chairman of the 
Raad, General Lucas Meyer, fresh from the 
battlefield, attracted the attention of the throng 
by announcing the arrival of the President. 
Spectators, Raad members, officials — all rose to 



> 




American consulate, Pretoria. 

their feet, and Paul Kruger, the Lion of Rus- 
tenberg, the Afrikander captain, entered the 
chamber and occupied a seat of honour. 

Grave affairs occupied the attention of the 
country, and there were many pressing matters 
to be adjusted, was the burden of the meeting, 
but the most important work was the defence 



i 



THE WAY TO THE BOER COUNTRY 



27 



of the country, and all the members were as a 
unit that their proper places were to be found 
with the burghers in the field. There was no 
talk of ending the Avar or of surrender, the 
President leading in the proposition to continue 
hostilities until a conclusion successful to the 
Boer cause was attained. '' Shall we lose cour- 
age ? " he demanded. '' Never ! Never ! ! 
Never ! ! ! " and then added reverently : '' May 
the people and the officers, animated and inspired 
by a Higher Power, realizing their duty, not 
only to those brave ones w^ho have already sac- 
rificed their lives for their fatherland, but also 
to posterity, that expects a free country, con- 
tinue and persevere in this war to the end." 
With these words of their aged chieftain en- 
graved on their hearts to strengthen their reso- 
lution, the members of the Volksraads again 
donned the garb of burghers and returned to 
their commandos to inspire them with new zeal 
and determination. 

After this memorable meeting of the Volks- 
raads, Pretoria again assumed the appearance of 
a city of peace, but the rapid approach of the 
forces of the enemy soon transformed it into 
a scene of desperation and panic. Men with 
drawm faces dashed through the city to assist 
their hard-pressed countrymen in the field, tear- 
ful women with children on their arms filled the 
churches with their moans and prayers, desert- 



28 THE BOERS IN WAR 

ers fleeing homeward exaggerated fresh disas- 
ters and increased the tension of the populace 
— tears and terror prevailed almost everywhere. 
Railway stations were filled with throngs intent 
on escaping from the coming disaster, com- 
mandos of breathless and blood-stained burghers 
entered the city, and soon the voice of the con- 
querors' cannon reverberated among the hills 
and valleys of the capital. Above the noise and 
din of the threatened city rose the calm assur- 
ance of Paul Kruger: *' Have good cheer; God 
will be with our people in the end." 



CHAPTER II 

FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 

In the olden days, before men with strange 
languages and customs entered their country 
and disturbed the serenity of their life, the Boers 
were accustomed to make annual trips to the 
north in search of game, and to exterminate the 
lions which periodically attacked their fiocks 
and herds. It was customary for relatives to 
form parties, and these trekked with their long 
ox wagons far into the northern Transvaal, and 
oftentimes into the wilderness beyond the Zam- 
besi. Women and children accompanied the 
expeditions, and remained behind in the ox 
wagons while the men rode away into the bush 
to search for buck, giraffe, and lion. Hardy 
men and women these were who braved the 
dangers of wild beasts and the terrors of the 
fever country, yet these treks to the north were 
as certain annual functions as the Nachtmaals 
in the churches. 

Men who went into the wild bush to hunt 
for the lions which had been their only uncon- 

29 



30 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



querable enemy for years learned to know no 
fear, and with their wives and children formed 
as hardy a race as virgin soil ever produced. 
With these pioneers it was not a matter of great 
pride to have shot a lion, but it was considered 
a disgrace to have missed one. To husband 
their sparse supplies of ammunition was their 
chief object, and to waste a shot by missing the 
target was to become the subject of good- 
natured derision and ridicule. Fathers, sons, 
and grandsons entered the bush together, and 
where there was a lion or other wild beast to 
be stalked the amateur hunter was initiated into 
the mysteries of backwoodsmanship by his expe- 
rienced elders. Consequently, the Boers became 
a nation of proficient lion hunters and efficiently 
ridded their country of the pest which continually 
threatened their safety, the safety of their fami- 
lies, and of their possessions of live stock. 

In later years, when the foreigner who bought 
his farms and searched for the wealth hidden on 
them became so numerous that the Boer seemed 
to be an unwelcome guest in his own house, the 
old-time lion hunter had foundation for believ- 
ing that a new enemy had suddenly arisen. The 
Boer attempted to placate the new enemy by 
means which failed. Afterward a bold but un- 
successful inroad was made into the country for 
the purpose of relieving him of the necessity of 
ruling it. Thereupon the old-time lion-fighting 



FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 



31 



spirit arose within the Boer and he began to 
prepare for future hunting expeditions. He 
stocked his arsenals with the best guns and am- 
munition the world produced, and he secured 
instructors to teach him the most modern and 
approved methods of fighting the new-style 
lion. He erected forts and stockades in which 
he might take refuge in the event the lions 
should prove too strong and numerous, and he 
made laws and regulations so that there might 
be no delay when the proper moment should 
arrive for attacking the enemy. While these 
matters were being perfected, further efforts 
were made to conciliate the enemy, but they 
proved futile, and it became evident that the 
farmer and the lion of 1899 were as implacable 
enemies as the farmer and lion of 1850. The 
lion of 1899 believed his cause to be as just as 
did the lion of half a century before, while the 
farmer felt that the lion, having been created by 
Nature, had a just claim upon Nature and her 
works for support, but desired that sustenance 
should be sought from other parts of Nature's 
stores. He insisted, moreover, if the lion wished 
to remain on the plantation, that he should 
not question the farmer's ownership, nor assume 
that the lion was an animal of a higher and finer 
grade than the farmer. 

A meeting between the representatives of 
the lions and the farmers led to no better under- 







O 

c 

6 

B 

o 



FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 



33 



standing ; in fact, when several days afterward 
all the fanners gathered at the historic Paarde- 
kraal monument they were unanimously of the 
opinion that the lion should be driven out of the 
country, or at least subdued to such an extent 
that peace might come and remain. Not since 
the days of 1877, when at the same spot each 
Boer, holding a stone above his head, vowed to 
shed his last drop of blood in defence of his 
country, was the community of farmers so in- 
dignant and excited. The aged President him- 
self, fresh from the conference with the lions, 
urged his countrymen to prevent a conflict, but 
to fight valiantly for their independence and 
rights if the necessity arose. Piet Joubert, who 
bore marks of a former conflict with the enemy, 
wept as he narrated the efforts which had been 
made to pacify the lions, and finally expressed 
the belief that every farmer in the country 
would yield his life's blood rather than sur- 
render the rights for which their fathers had 
bled and died. When other leaders had spoken, 
the picturesque custom of renewing the oath 
of fealty to the country's flag was observed, as 
it had been every fifth year since the days of 
Majuba Hill. Ten thousand farmers uncovered 
their heads, raised their eyes toward heaven, and 
repeated the Boer oath : 

'' In the presence of Almighty God, the 
Searcher of Hearts, and praying for his gra- 



34 THE BOERS IN WAR 

cious assistance and mercy, we, burghers of the 
South African Republic, have solemnly agreed 
for us and our children to unite in a holy cove- 
nant, which we confirm with a solemn oath. It 
is now forty years ago since our fathers left the 
Cape Colony to become a free and independent 
people. These forty years were forty years of 
sorrow and suffering. We have founded Natal, 
the Orange Free State, and the South African 
Republic [Transvaal], and three times has the 
English Government trampled on our liberty, 
and our flag, baptized with the blood and tears 
of our fathers, has been pulled down. As by a 
thief in the night has our free republic been 
stolen from us. We can not suffer this, and we 
may not. It is the will of God that the unity 
of our fathers and our love to our children 
should oblige us to deliver unto our children, 
unblemished, the heritage of our fathers. It is 
for this reason that we here unite and give each 
other the hand as men and brethren, solemnly 
promising to be faithful to our country and 
people, and, looking unto God, to work to- 
gether unto death for the restoration of the 
liberty of our republic. So truly help us, God 
Almighty ! " 

Ten thousand voices then joined in singing 
the national anthem and a psalm, and the mem- 
orable meeting at this fount of patriotism was 
closed with a prayer and a benediction. 



FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 



35 



After this meeting it was uncertain for some 
months which would attack ; both were pre- 
paring as rapidly as possible for the conflict, and 
the advantage seemed to lie with the one who 
should strike first. The leaders of the lions 
seemed to have forgotten that they had lion 
hunters as their opponents, and the farmers 
neglected to take into account the fact that 
the lion tribe was exceedingly numerous and 
spread over the whole earth. When the lead- 
ing farmers met in conclave at Pretoria and 
heard the demands of the lions, they laughed at 
them, sent an ultimatum in reply, and started 
for the frontier to join those of their countrymen 
who had gone there days before to watch that no 
body of lions should make another surreptitious 
attack upon their country. Another community 
of farmers living to the south, who had also been 
harassed by the lions for many years and felt 
that their future safety lay in the subjugation of 
the lion tribe, joined their neighbours in arms 
and went forth with them to the greatest lion 
hunt that South Africa has ever had. The 
enemy and all other men called it war, but to 
the Boer it was merely a hunt for lions, such as 
they had engaged in oftentimes before. 

The old Boer farmer hardly needed the 
proclamation from Pretoria to tell him that 
there was to be a lion hunt, and that he should 
prepare for it immediately. He had known 



36 THE BOERS IN WAR 

that the hunt was inevitable long before Octo- 
ber II, 1899, and he had made preparations for it 
months and even years before. When the offi- 
cial notification from the commandant general 
reached him through the field cornet of the dis- 
trict in which he lived, he was prepared in a 
few minutes to start for the frontier, where the 
British lions were to be found. The new Mau- 
ser rifle which the Government had given him 
a year or two before was freshly oiled and its 
working order inspected. The bandolier, filled 
with bright new cartridges, was swung over his 
shoulder, and then, after putting a Testament into 
his coat pocket, he was ready to proceed. He 
despised a uniform of any kind, as smacking of 
antirepublican ideas and likely to attract the 
attention of the enemy. The same corduroy or 
moleskin trousers, dark coat, wide-brimmed hat, 
and home-made shoes which he was accustomed 
to wear in everyday life on the farm were good 
enough for a hunting expedition, and he needed 
and yearned for nothing better. A uniform 
would have caused him to feel uneasy and out 
of place, and when lions were the game he 
wanted to be thoroughly comfortable, so that 
his arm and aim might be steady. His vrouw, 
who was filling a linen sack with bread, biltong, 
and coffee to be consumed on his journey to the 
hunting grounds, may have taken the oppor- 
tunity while he was cleaning his rifle to sew a 



FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 



37 



rosette of the vierkleur of the republic on his 
hat, or, remembering the custom observed in 
the old-time wars against the natives, may have 
found the fluffy, brown tail of a meerkats and 
fixed it on the upturned brim of his grimy hat. 
When these few preparations were concluded 
the Kafir servant brought his master's horse and 
fixed to the front of the saddle a small roll con- 
taining a blanket and a mackintosh. To another 
part of the saddle he strapped a small black ket- 
tle, to be used for the preparation of the lion 
hunter's only luxury, coffee, and then the list of 
impedimenta was complete. 

The horseman who brought the summons to 
go to the frontier had hardly reached the neigh- 
bouring farmhouse, when the Boer lion hunter, 
uniformed, outfitted, and armed, was on his 
horse's back and ready for any duty at any 
place. With a rifle, a bandolier, and a horse, the 
Boer felt as if he were among kindred spirits, 
and nothing more was necessary to complete 
his temporal happiness. The horse is a part of 
the Boer hunter, and he might as well have 
gone to the frontier without a rifle as to go in 
the capacity of a foot soldier. The Boer is the 
modern Centaur, and therein is found an ex- 
planation for part of his success in hunting and 
in warfare. 

When once the Boer left his home he be- 
came an army unto himself. He needed no one 



38 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



to care for himself and his horse, nor were the 
leaders of the army obliged to issue myriads of 
orders for his guidance. He had learned long 
before that he should meet the other hunters of 
his ward at a certain spot, in case there was a 




Meeting of a ward commando. 

call to arms, and thither he went as rapidly as 
his pony could carry him. When he arrived at 
the meeting place he found all his neighbours 
and friends gathered in groups and discussing 
the situation. Certain ones of them had brought 
with them big white-tented ox wagons for con- 



FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 



39 



veying ammunition, commissariat stores, and 
such extra luggage as some might wish to carry, 
and these were sent ahead as soon as the field 
cornet, the military leader of the ward, learned 
that all his men had arrived from their homes. 
The hunters then formed what was styled a 
commando, whether it consisted of fifteen or 
fifty men, and proceeded in a body to a second 
prearranged meeting place where all the ward 
commandos of a certain district were asked to 
congregate. 

When all these commandos had arrived in 
one locality they fell under the authority of the 
commandant who had been elected to that post 
by the burghers at the preceding election. This 
official had received his orders directly from the 
commandant general, and but little time was 
consumed in disseminating the orders to the 
burghers through the various field cornets. 
After all the Avard commandos had arrived, the 
district commando was set in motion toward 
that part of the frontier where its services were 
required ; and a most unwarlike spectacle it 
presented as it rolled along over the muddy, 
slippery veld. In the van were the huge, lum- 
bering wagons, with hordes of hullabalooing 
natives cracking their long rawhide whips and 
urging the sleek, long-horned oxen forward 
through the mud. Following the wagon train 
came the cavalcade of armed lion hunters, grim 



40 THE BOERS IN WAR 

and determined looking enough from a distance, 
but most peaceful and inoffensive when once 
they understood the stranger's motives. No 
order or discipline was visible in the commando 
on the march, and if the rifles and bandoliers 
had not appeared so prominently it might read- 
ily have been mistaken for a party of Nacht- 
maal celebrants on the way to Pretoria. Now 
and then some youths emerged from the crowd 
and indulged in an impromptu horse race, only 
to return and receive a chiding from their elders 
for wasting their horses' strength unnecessarily. 
Occasionally the keen eyes of a rider spied a 
buck in the distance, and then several of the 
lion hunters sped obliquely off the track and 
replenished the commando larder with much 
smaller game than was the object of their expe- 
dition. 

If the commando came from a district far 
from the frontier, it proceeded to the railway 
station nearest to the central meeting place and 
then embarked for the front. No extraordinary 
preparations were necessary for the embarking 
of a large commando, nor was much time lost 
before the hunters were speeding toward their 
destination. Every man placed his own horse 
in a cattle car, his saddle, bridle, and haversack 
in the passenger coach, and then assisted in 
hoisting the cumbersome ox wagons on flat-top 
trucks. There were no specially deputized 




c 
.2 

6 






G 



O 

d 

a 
s 

o 
u 






42 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



men to entrain the horses, with others to load 
the wagons, and still others subtracted from 
the fighting strength of the nation to attend to 
such detail duties as require the services of 
hundreds of men in other armies. 

After the burghers were entrained and the 
long commando train was set in motion, the 
most fatiguing part of the campaign was before 
them. To ride on a South African railway was 
a disagreeable exercise in times of peace, but in 
war times, when trains were long and over- 
crowded, and the rate of progress never higher 
than fifteen miles an hour, all other campaign- 
ing duties were as pleasurable enjoyments. The 
majority of the burghers, unaccustomed to jour- 
neying in railway trains, relished the innovation 
and managed to make merry, even though six 
of them with all their saddles and personal lug- 
gage were crowded into one compartment. The 
singing of hymns occupied much of their time 
on the journey, and when they tired of this they 
played practical jokes upon one another, and 
amused themselves by leaning out of the win- 
dows and jeering at the men who were guard- 
ing the railway bridges and culverts. At the 
stations they grasped their coffeepots and 
rushed to the locomotive to secure hot water 
with which to prepare their beverage. It sel- 
dom happened that any Boer going to the front 
carried any liquor with him, and, although the 



FROM FARM TO BATTLEFIELD 



43 



delays and vexations of the journey were suffi- 
ciently irritating to serve as an excuse, drunk- 
enness practically never occurred. Genuine 
good-fellowship prevailed among them, and no 
quarrelling was to to be observed. It seemed 
as if every one of them was striving to live the 
ideal life portrayed in the Testament which 
they read assiduously scores of times every day. 
Whether a train was delayed an hour at a sid- 
ing, or whether it stopped so suddenly that all 
were thrown from their seats, there was no pro- 
fane language, but usually jesting and joking 
instead. Little discomforts, which would cause 
an ordinary American or European soldier to 
use volumes of profanity, were passed by without 
notice or comment by these psalm-singing Boers, 
and inconveniences of greater moment, like the 
disarrangement of the commissariat along the 
route, caused only slight remonstrances from 
them. An angry man was as rarely seen as one 
who cursed, and more rare than either was an 
intoxicated one. 

Few of the men were given to boasting of 
the valour they would display in warfare or of 
their abilities in marksmanship. They had no 
battle cry of revenge, like '' Remember the 
Maine!" or ''Avenge Majuba!" except it was 
the motto, '' For God, country, and independ- 
ence, "which many bore on the bands of their 
hats and on the stocks of their rifles. Occasion- 



44 THE BOERS IN WAR 

ally one boasted of the superiority of the Boer, 
and more frequently one would be heard to set 
three months as the limit required to conquer 
the British army. The name of Jameson, the 
raider, was frequently heard, but always in a 
manner which might have led one unacquainted 
with recent Transvaal history to believe that 
he was a patron saint of the republic. It was 
not a cry of "■ Remember Jameson ! '' for the 
wrongs he committed, but rather a plea to 
honour him for having placed the republic on 
its guard against the dangers which threatened 
it from beyond its borders. It was frequently 
suggested, when his name was mentioned, that 
after the war a monument should be erected to 
him, because he had given them warning, and 
that they had profited by the warning to the ex- 
tent that they had armed themselves thoroughly. 
Seldom was there any boasting concerning the 
number of the enemy that would fall to Boer 
bullets ; instead there was a tone of sorrow 
when they spoke of the soldiers of the Queen 
who would die on the field of battle while fight- 
ing for a cause concerning the justice or injus- 
tice of which they could not speak. 

After the commando train reached its desti- 
nation, the burghers again took charge of their 
own horses and conveyances, and even in less 
time than it required to place them on the train 
they were unloaded and ready to proceed to 




o 
c 



o 
a; 

bo 

C 



46 THE BOERS IN WAR 

the point where the generals needed their as- 
sistance. The Boer was always considerate of 
his horse, and it became a custom to delay for 
several hours after leaving the train in order 
that the animals might feed and recover from 
the fatigues of the journey before starting out 
on a trek over the veld. After the horses had 
been given an opportunity to rest, the order to 
*^ upsaddle " came from the commandant, and 
the procession, with the ox wagons in the van, 
was again formed. The regular army order 
was then established ; scouts were sent ahead 
to determine the location of the enemy, and the 
officers for the first time appeared to lead their 
men in concerted action against the opposing 
forces. To call the Boer force an army is to 
add unwarranted elasticity to the word, for it 
had but one quality in common with such armed 
forces as Americans and Europeans are accus- 
tomed to call by that name. The Boer army 
fought with guns and gunpowder, but it had no 
discipline, no drills, no forms, no standards, and 
not even a roll call. It was an enlarged edition 
of the hunting parties which a quarter century 
ago went into the Zoutpansberg in search of 
game — it was a massive aggregation of lion 
hunters. 



CHAPTER III 

THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 

A VISITOR in one of the laagers in Natal once 
spoke of a Boer burgher as a '' soldier." A Boer 
from the Wakkerstrom district interrupted his 
speech and said there were no Boer soldiers. 
'' If you want us to understand concerning whom 
3^ou are talking," he continued, '' you must call 
us burghers or farmers. Only the English are 
soldiers." It was so with all the Boers ; none 
understood the term soldier as applying to any- 
body except their enemy, while many consid- 
ered it an insult to be called a soldier, as it im- 
plied to a certain degree that they were fighting 
for hire. In times of peace the citizen of the 
Boer Republics was called a burgher, and when 
he took up arms and went to war he received 
no special title to distinguish him from the man 
who remained at home. " My burghers," Paul 
Kruger was wont to call them before the war, 
and when they came forth from battle they were 
content when he said, '' My burghers are doing 
well." The Boers Avere proud of their citizen- 

47 




A Boer burgher. 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY ^g 

ship, and when their country was in danger 
they went forth as private citizens and not as 
bold warriors to protect it. 

There was a law in the two republics which 
made it incumbent upon all burghers between 
the ages of sixteen and sixty to join a commando 
and to go to war when it was necessary. There 
was no law, however, to prevent a man of what- 
ever usefulness or age from assisting in the 
defence of his country ; and in consequence the 
Boer commandos contained almost the entire 
male population between the ages of thirteen 
and eighty. In peaceful times the Boer farmer 
rarely travelled away from his home unless he 
was accompanied by his family, and he would 
have felt the pangs of homesickness if he had 
not been continually surrounded by his wife and 
children. When the war began it was not an 
easy matter for the burgher to leave his home 
for an indefinite period, and in order that he 
might not be lonely he took with him all his 
sons who were strong enough to carry a rifle. 
The Boer youth develops into manhood early 
in life in the mild South African climate, and 
the boy of twelve or thirteen years is the equal 
in physical development of the American or 
European of sixteen or seventeen. He was ac- 
customed to living on the open veld and hunt- 
ing with his elders, and when he saw that all 
his former companions were going to war, he 



50 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



begged for permission to accompany the com- 
mando. 

The Boer boy of twelve years does not wear 
knickerbocker trousers like the youth of equal 
age in many other countries, but he is clothed 
exactly as his father, and he being almost as 
tall, his youthful appearance is not so notice- 
able when he is among a large number of his 
countrymen. Scores of boys not more than 
twelve years old were in laagers in Natal, and 
hundreds of less age than the minimum pre- 
scribed by the military law were in every large 
commando in the country. 

When Ladysmith was still besieged, one 
youth of eleven years was conspicuous in the 
Standerton laager. He seemed to be a mere 
child, yet he had the patriotism of ten men. He 
followed his father everywhere, whether into 
battle or to the spring for water. *' When my 
father is injured or killed, I will take his rifle,'' 
was his excuse for being away from home. 
When General De Wet captured seven cannon 
from the enemy at the battle of Sannaspost two 
of the volunteers to operate them were boys, 
aged respectively fourteen and fifteen years. 
Pieter J. Henning, of the Potchefstroom com- 
mando, who was injured in the battle of Scholtz- 
nek on December nth, was less than fifteen 
years old, yet his valour in battle was as con- 
spicuous as that of any of the burghers who 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



51 



took part in the engagement. Teunis H. C. 
Mulder, of the Pretoria commando, celebrated 
his sixteenth birthday only a few days before he 




p. J. Lemmer, 
aged sixty-five. 



J. D. L. Botha, 
aged fifteen. 



C. J. Pretorius, 
aged forty-three. 



Takhaar and penkop fought side by side. 



was twice wounded at Ladysmith on November 
9th ; and Willem Frangois Joubert, a relative of 
the commandant general, was only fifteen years 
old when he was wounded at Ladysmith on 

5 



52 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



October 30th. At the battle of Koedoesrand, 
fifteen-year-old Pieter de Jager, of the Bethle- 
hem commando, was seriously injured by a shell 
while he was conveying his injured father from 
the field. With the army of General Cronje, 
captured at Paardeberg, were no less than a 
hundred burghers who had not reached the six- 
teenth year, and among those who escaped from 
the laager in the river bed were two Bloemfon- 
tein boys, named Roux, aged twelve and four- 
teen years. At Colenso a Wakkerstroom youth 
of twelve years captured three English scouts, 
and compelled them to march ahead of him 
to the commandant's tent. During one of the 
calms in the fighting at Magersfontein a burgher 
of fifteen years crept up to within twenty yards 
of three British soldiers and shouted, '* Hands 
up ! " Thinking that there were other Boers in 
the vicinity, the men dropped their guns and 
became prisoners of the boy, who took them to 
General de la Rey's tent. When the general 
asked the boy how he secured the prisoners the 
lad replied, nonchalantly, " Oh, I surrounded 
them.'' 

These youths who accompanied the com- 
mando were known as the '' Penkop Regi- 
ment" (a regiment composed of school chil- 
dren), and in their connection an amusing 
story has been current in the Boer country 
ever since the war of 1881, when large num- 




o 
c 

PU 



54 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



bers of children less than fifteen years old 
went with their fathers to battle. After the 
fight at Majuba Hill, while the peace negotia- 
tions were in progress, Sir Evelyn Wood, the 
commander of the British forces, asked permis- 
sion of General Joubert to see the famous Pen- 
kop Regiment. The Boer general gave an or- 
der that the boys in the laager should be drawn 
up in a line before his tent, and when this had 
been done he led General Wood into the open 
and introduced him to the corps. Sir Evelyn 
was sceptical for some time, and imagined that 
General Joubert was joking, but when it was 
explained to him that the youths really were 
the much-vaunted Penkop Regiment he advised 
them to return to their school books. 

When a man has reached the age of sixty it 
may be assumed that he has outlived his useful- 
ness as a soldier, but not so with the Boers. 
Not one man, but hundreds there were, who had 
passed the biblical threescore years and ten, 
and were fighting valiantly in defence of their 
country. Gray-haired men, who in another 
country might be expected to be found at their 
homes reading the accounts of their grandsons* 
deeds in the war, went out on scouting duty and 
scaled hills with almost as much alacrity as the 
burghers only half their age. Men who could 
boast of being grandfathers were innumerable, 
and in almost any laager there could be seen 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



55 



fathers, sons, and grandsons, all fighting with 
equal vigour and enthusiasm. Paul Kruger was 
seventy-five years old, but there were many of 
his burghers several years older than he who 
went to the frontier with their commandos, and 
remained there for several months at a time. 

A great-grandfather serving in the capacity 
of a private soldier may appear like a mythical 
tale, but there were several such. Old Jan van 
der Westhuizen, of the Middleburg laager, was 
active and enthusiastic at eighty-two years, 
and felt more than proud of four great-grand- 
children. Piet Kruger, a relative of the Presi- 
dent and four years his senior, was an active 
participant in every battle in which the Rusten- 
berg commando was engaged while it was in 
Natal, and he never once referred to the fact 
that he fought in the 1881 war and in the attack 
upon Jameson's men. Four of Kruger's sons 
shared the same tent and fare with him, and ten 
of his grandsons were burghers in other com- 
mandos. Jan C. ven Tander, of Boshof, exceed- 
ed the maximum of the military age by eight 
years; but he was early in the field, and was 
seriously wounded at the battle of Scholtznek 
on December nth. General Joubert himself 
was almost seventy years old, but, as far as 
physical activity was concerned, there were a 
score of burghers in his commando, each from 
five to ten years older, who exhibited more 



56 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



activity in one battle than many a younger man 
did during the entire Natal campaign. The 
hundreds of bridges and culverts along the rail- 
v^ay lines in the Transvaal, the Orange Free 
State, and upper Natal were guarded day and 
night by Boers more than sixty years old, w^ho 
had volunteered to do the work in order that 
younger men might be sent to localities where 
their services might be more necessary. Other 
old Boers and cripples attended to the commis- 
sariat arrangements along the railways, con- 
ducted commissariat wagons, gathered forage 
for the horses at the front, and arranged the 
thousands of details which are necessary to the 
well-being and comfort of every army, however 
simple its organization. 

It was not only the extremely old and the 
extremely young who went to war; it was a 
transfer of the entire population of the two 
republics to the frontiers, and no condition or 
position was sufficient excuse to remain behind. 
The professional man of Pretoria and Johannes- 
burg was in a laager which was adjacent to a 
laager of farthest back-veld farmers. Lawyers 
and physicians, photographers and grocers, 
speculators and sextons, judges and schoolmas- 
ters, schoolboys and hotel keepers — all who 
were burghers locked their desks and offices 
and journeyed to the front. Even clergymen 
closed their houses of worship in the towns and 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



57 



remained among the commandos to pray and 
preach for those who did the fighting. The 
members of the Volksraads, who brought on the 
war by their ultimatum, were among the first 
in the field, and foremost in attacking the sol- 
diers of the enemy. Students in European uni- 
versities, who hastened home when war clouds 
were gathering, went shoulder to shoulder into 
battle with the backwoodsman, the Boer tak- 
haar. There was no pride among them ; no 
class distinction which prevented a farmer from 
speaking to a millionaire. A graduate of Cam- 
bridge had as his boon companion for five 
months a farmer who thought the earth a square, 
and imagined the United States to be a political 
division of Australia. 

Among the Boers were many burghers who 
had assisted Great Britain in her former wars 
in South Africa ; men who had fought under the 
British flag, but were now fighting against it. 
Colonel Ignace Ferreira, a member of one of the 
oldest Boer families, fought under Lord Wolse- 
ley in the Zulu war, and had the order of the 
Commander of the Bath conferred upon him by 
the Queen. Colonel Ferreira was at the head 
of a commando at Mafeking. Paul Dietzch, the 
military secretary of General Meyer, fought 
under the British flag in the Gaika and several 
other native wars. 

The Boer who was bred in a city or town 



58 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



good-naturedly refers to his country cousin as a 
^* takhaar " — a man with grizzly beard and un- 
kempt hair. It is a good descriptive term, and 
the takhaar is not offended when it is applied 
to him. The takhaar is the modern type of the 
old voortrekker Boer who, almost a hundred 
years ago, moved northward from Cape Colony 
and, after overcoming thousands of difficulties, 
settled in the present Boer country. He is a 
religious, big-hearted countryman of the kind 
who will suspect a stranger until he proves him- 
self worthy of trust. After that period is passed 
the takhaar will walk the veld in order that you 
may ride his horse. If he can not talk your lan- 
guage he will repeat such words as he knows a 
dozen times, meanwhile offering to you coffee, 
mutton, bread, and all the best that his laager 
larder affords. He offers to exchange a pipe 
load of tobacco with you, and when that occurs 
you can take it for granted that he is your friend 
for life. 

The takhaar was the man who went to the 
frontiers on his own responsibility weeks before 
the ultimatum was sent, and watched day and 
night lest the enemy might trample a rod beyond 
the bounds. He was the man who stopped 
Jameson, who climbed Majuba, and who fought 
the natives whenever they began their massa- 
cres. The takhaar was the Boer before gold 
brought restlessness into the country, and he is 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY ^g 

proud of his title. The fighting ability of the 
takhaar is best illustrated by repeating an inci- 
dent which occurred after the battle of Dundee, 
when a large number of hussars were captured. 
One of the hussar officers asked for the name of 
the regiment he had been fighting against. A 
fun-loving Boer replied that the Boers had no 
regiments ; that their men were divided into 
three brigades — the Afrikanders, the Boers, and 
the takhaars — a distinction which carried with 
it but a slight difference. '' The Afrikander 
brigade," the Boer explained, '^ is fighting now. 
The men fight like demons. When they are 
killed then the Boers take the field. The Boers 
fight about twice as well and hard as the Afri- 
kanders. As soon as all the Boers are killed, 
then come the takhaars, and they would rather 
fight than eat." The officer remained silent a 
moment, then sighed and said, '' Well, if that is 
correct, then our job is bigger than I thought 
it was." 

The ideal Boer is a man with a bearded face 
and a flowing mustache; and, in order to appear 
idyllic, almost every Boer burgher who was not 
thus favoured before war was begun engaged 
in the peaceful process of growing a beard. 
Young men who in times of peace detested hir- 
sute adornments of the face allowed their beards 
and mustaches to grow, and after a month or 
two it was almost impossible to find a burgh- 



6o 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



er who was without a growth of hair on his 
chin and cheeks. The wearing of a beard was 
almost equal to a badge of Boer citizenship, 
and for the time being every Boer was a takhaar 







L\ 



An old takhaar. 



in appearance if not in fact. The adoption of 
beards was not so much fancy as it was a mat- 
ter of discretion. The Boer was aware of the 
fact that few of the enemy wore beards, and so 
it was thought quite ingenious for all burghers 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 6l 

to wear facial adornments of that kind in order 
that friend and foe might be distinguished more 
readily at a distance. 

Notwithstanding their ability to fight when 
it was necessary, it is doubtful whether twenty 
per cent of the Boer burghers in the commandos 
would have been accepted for service in any 
European or American army. The rigid phys- 
ical examinations of many of the armies would 
debar thousands from becoming regular sol- 
diers. There were men in the Boer forces who 
had only one arm, some with only one leg, 
others with only one eye ; some were almost 
totally blind, while others would have felt hap- 
py if they could have heard the reports of their 
rifles. Men who were suffering from various 
kinds of illnesses, and who should have been in 
a physician's care, were to be seen in every 
laager. Men Avho wore spectacles were nu- 
merous, while those who suffered from diseases 
which disbar a man from a regular army were 
almost without number. The high percentage 
of men unfit for military duty was not due to 
the Boers' general lack of health, for they are 
as robust as farmers are in other parts of the 
earth. Take the entire male population of any 
district in Europe or America, and compare the 
individuals with the standard required by army 
rules, and the result will not differ greatly from 
the outcome of the Boer examination. If all 



62 THE BOERS IN WAR 

the youths and old men, the sick and maimed, 
could have been eliminated from the Boer 
forces, eighty per cent would probably have 
been found to be a low estimate of the number 
thus subtracted from the total force. It would 
have been heartrending to many a European or 
American general to see the unsoldierly bear- 
ing of the Boer burgher; and in what manner 
an army of children, great-grandfathers, inva- 
lids, and blind men, with a handful of good men 
to leaven it, could be of any service whatever, 
would have been quite beyond his conception. 
It was of such a mixed force that a Russian offi- 
cer, who at the outset of the war entered the 
Transvaal to fight, became disgusted with the 
unmilitary appearance and returned to his own 
country. 

The accoutrement of the Boer burghers was 
none the less incongruous than the physical 
appearance of the majority of them, although 
no expensive uniform and trappings could have 
be^n of more practical value. The men of the 
Pretoria and Johannesburg commandos had the 
unique honour of going to the war in uniforms 
specially made for the purpose, but there was 
no regulation or law which compelled them to 
wear certain kinds of clothing. When these 
commandos went to the frontier several days 
before the actual warfare had begun they were 
clothed in khaki-coloured cloth of almost the 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



63 



same description as that worn by the soldiers 
whom they intended to fight. These two com- 
mandos were composed of townfolk who had 
absorbed many of the customs and habits of the 
foreigners present in the country, and they felt 
that it would be more w^arlike if they should 
wear uniforms made specially for camp and field. 
The old Boers of the towns and the takhaars 
looked askance at the youth of Pretoria and 
Johannesburg in their uniforms, and shook their 
heads at the innovation as smacking too much 
of an anti-republican spirit. 

Like Cincinnatus, the majority of the old 
Boers went directly from their farms to the 
battlefields, and they wore the same clothing in 
the laagers as they used when shearing their 
sheep or herding their cattle on their farms. 
When they started for the frontier the Boer 
farmers arranged matters so that they might 
be comfortable while the campaign continued. 
Many, it is true, dashed away from home at the 
first call to arms, and carried with them besides 
a rifle and bandolier nothing but a mackintosh, 
blanket, and haversack of food. The majority 
of them, however, were solicitous of their future 
comfort and loaded themselves down with all 
kinds of luggage. Some went to the frontier 
with their big, four-wheeled ox wagons, and in 
these they conveyed cooking utensils, trunks, 
boxes with food and flour, mattresses, and even 



64 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



stoves. The Rustenberg farmers were specially 
solicitous about their comfort, and these patri- 




Type of uniformed Boer artillerist. 

Otic old takhaars practically moved their fam- 
ilies and household furniture to the camps. 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 65 

Some of the burghers took two or three horses 
each, in order that there might be no delay or 
annoyance in case of misfortune by death or 
accident, and frequently a burgher could be 
seen who had one horse for himself, another for 
his camp utensils and extra clothing, and a 
third and fourth for native servants who cooked 
his meals and watched the horses while they 
grazed. 

Without his horse the Boer would be of little 
account as a fighting man, and those magnifi- 
cent little ponies deserve almost as much credit 
for the glory which attended the campaign as 
their riders. If some South African does not 
frame a eulogy of the little beasts, it will not be 
because they did not deserve it. The horse was 
half the centaur and quite the life of him. 
Small and wiry, he was able to jog along fifty 
and sixty miles a day for several days in succes- 
sion, and, when the occasion demanded it, he 
could attain a rate of speed that equalled that 
of the ordinary South African railway train, 
which, however, made no claims to lightning- 
like velocit}^ He bore all kinds of weather, was 
not liable to sickness except at one season of the 
year, and he was able to work two and even 
three days without as much as a blade of grass. 
He could thrive on the grass of the veld, and 
when winter killed the grass he needed but a 
few bundles of forage a day to keep him in good 



66 THE BOERS IN WAR 

condition. He climbed rocky mountain sides as 
readily as a buck, and never wandered from a 
path in the darkest night. He drank and appar- 
ently relished the murky water of mud pools, 
and needed but little attention with the curry- 
comb and brush. He was trained to obey the 
gentlest turn of the reins, and a slight whistle 
brought him to a full stop. When his master 
left him and went forward into battle, the Boer 
pony remained in the exact position where he 
was placed, and when perchance a shell or 
bullet ended his existence, there the Boer paid 
a tribute to the value of his dead servant by 
refusing to continue the fight and beating a 
hasty retreat. 

In the early part of the campaign in Natal 
the laagers were filled with the ox wagons, and 
in the absence of tents, which were sadly 
wanted during that season of heavy rains, they 
stood in good stead to the burghers. The rear 
parts of the wagons were tented with an arched 
roof, as all the trek wagons are, and under these 
shelters the burghers lived. Many of the 
burghers w^ho left their ox wagons at home 
took small, light four-wheeled carriages, locally 
called spiders, or the huge two-wheelers or 
Cape carts, so serviceable and common through- 
out the country. These w^ere readily trans- 
formed into tents, and made excellent sleeping 
accommodations by night and transport wagons 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



67 



for the luggage when the commandos mov^ed 
from one place to another. When a rapid 
march was contemplated all the heavy wagons 
were left behind in the charge of native serv- 
ants, with which every burgher was provided. 




Men accompanied by their native servants. 



It was quite in keeping with their other 
ideas of personal comfort for man}^ Boer burgh- 
ers to carry a coloured parasol or an umbrella 
to protect them from the rays of the sun, and 
it was not considered beneath their dignity to 
wear a woman's shawl around their shoulders 

6 



68 THE BOERS IN WAR 

or head when the morning air was chilly. At 
first sight of these unique spectacles, the stranger 
in the Boer country felt amused, but if he cared 
to smile at every unmilitary scene he would 
have had little time for other things. It was a 
republican army composed of republicans, and 
anything that smacked of the opposite was ab- 
horred. There were no flags or insignia of any 
kind to lead the burghers on. Such mottoes as 
expressed their cause were embroidered on the 
bands of their felt hats and cut on the stocks of 
their rifles. ''For God and freedom," "For 
freedom, land, and people," and '' For God, 
country, and justice," were among the senti- 
ments which some of the burghers carried into 
battle on their hats and rifles. Others had vier- 
kleur ribbons as bands for their hats, while many 
carried miniatures containing the photographs 
of the Presidents on the upturned brims of 
their headgear. 

Aside from the dangers arising from a con- 
tact with the enemy and the heartburns result- 
ing from a long absence from his home, the 
Boer burgher's experiences at the front were 
not arduous. First and foremost, he had a horse 
and rifle, and with these he was always more or 
less happy. He had fresh meats provided to 
him daily, and he had native servants to pre- 
pare and serve his meals for him. He was 
under no discipline whatever, and he was his 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 69 

own master at all times. He generally had his 
sons or brothers with him in the same laager, 
and to a Boer there was always much joy in 
that. He could go on picket duty and have a 
brush with the enemy whenever he felt inclined 
to do so, or he could remain in his laager and 
never have a glimpse of the enemy. Every two 
months he was entitled to a ten days' leave of 
absence to visit his home, and at other times, 
during the first five months of the war, his wife 
and children were allowed to visit him in his 
laager. If he was stationed along the northern 
or western frontiers of the Transvaal, he was in 
the game country and was able to go on buck- 
shooting expeditions as frequently as he cared. 
He was not compelled to rise at a certain hour in 
the morning, and he could go to bed whenever 
he wished. There was no drill, no roll call — 
none of the thousands of petty details which the 
soldiers of even the Portuguese army are com- 
pelled to perform. As a result of a special law, 
there was no work on Sundays or church holi- 
days unless the enemy brought it about, and 
then, if he was a stickler for the observance of 
the Sabbath, he was not compelled to move a 
muscle. The Boer burgher could eat, sleep, or 
fight whenever he wished ; and inasmuch as he 
was a law unto himself* there was no one who 
could compel him to change his habits. It was 
an ideal idle man's mode of living, and the for- 



70 THE BOERS IN WAR 

eign volunteers, who had leaves of absence from 
their own armies, made the most of their holiday. 
The most conspicuous features of the Boer 
forces were the equality of the officers and the 
men, and the entire absence of any assumption 
of superiority by the leaders of the burghers. 
All the officers, from the commandant general 
down to the corporal, carried rifles and bando- 
liers, and all wore the ordinary garb of a civilian, 
so that there was nothing to indicate the man's 
military standing. The officers associated with 
their men every hour of the day, and in most 
instances were able to call the majority of them 
by their Christian names. With one or two ex- 
ceptions all the generals were farmers before the 
war started, and consequently they were un- 
able to assume any great degree of superiority 
over their farmer burghers if they had wished 
to do so. General Meyer pitched quoits with 
his men. General Botha swapped tobacco with 
any one of his burghers, and General Smutz 
and one of his officers held the whist champion- 
ship of their laager. Rarely a burgher touched 
his hat before speaking to an officer, but he in- 
variably shook hands with him at meeting and 
parting. It is a Boer custom to shake hands 
with friends or strangers, and whenever a gen- 
eral visited a laager adjoining his own the hand- 
shaking reminded one of the President's public 
reception days at Washington. When General 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



71 



Joubert went from camp to camp he greeted all 
the burghers who came near him with a grasp 
of the hand, and it was the same with all the 
other generals and officers. Whenever Presi- 
dents Kruger and Steyn went to the commandos 
they held out their right hands to all the burgh- 
ers who approached them, and one might have 
imagined that every Boer was personally ac- 
quainted with every other man in the repub- 
lics. It was the same with strangers who visited 
the laagers, and many a sore wrist testified to 
the Boer's republicanism. Some one called it 
the '' handshaking army," and it was a most de- 
scriptive title. Many of the burghers could not 
refrain from exercising their habit, and shook 
hands with British prisoners, much to the aston- 
ishment of the captured ones. 

Another striking feature of life in the Boer 
laagers was the deep religious feeling which 
manifested itself in a thousand different ways. 
It is an easy matter for an irreligious person to 
scoff at men who pass through a campaign with 
prayer and hymn singing, and it is just as easy 
to laugh at the man who reads his Testament 
at intervals of shooting at the enemy. The 
Boer was a religious man always, and when he 
went to war he placed as much faith in prayer 
and in his Testament as in his rifle. He be- 
lieved that his cause was just, and that the Lord 
would favour those fighting in a righteous spirit. 



J2 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



On October nth, before the burghers crossed 
the frontier at Laing's Nek, a religious service 
was held. Every burgher in the commandos 
knelt on the ground and uttered a prayer for 
the success and speedy ending of the campaign. 
Hymns were sung, and for a full hour the hills, 
whereon almost twenty years before many of 
the same burghers had sung and prayed after 
the victory at Majuba, were resounding with 
the religious and patriotic songs of men going 
forward to kill and be killed. 

In their laagers the Boers had religious 
services at daybreak and after sunset every day, 
whether they were near to the enemy or far 
away. At first the novelty of being awakened 
early in the morning by the voices of a large 
commando of burghers was not conducive to a 
religious feeling in the mind of a stranger, but 
a short stay in the laagers caused anger to turn 
to admiration. After sunset the burghers again 
gathered in groups around camp fires and made 
the countryside re-echo with the sound of their 
deep, bass voices united in Dutch hymns and 
psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Whether 
they ate a big meal from a well-equipped table, 
or whether they leaped from their horses to 
make a hasty meal of biltong and bread, they 
reverently bowed their heads and asked a bless- 
ing before and after eating. Before they went 
into battle they gathered around their general. 




03 
OS 

03 



a 
;3 
o 

u 
be 



74 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



and were led in prayer by the man who was 
chosen to lead them against the enemy. When 
the battle was concluded, and whether the field 
was won or lost, prayers were offered to the 
God of battles. In the reports which generals 
and commandants made to the war department 
victories and defeats were invariably ascribed 
to the will of God, and such phrases as " All 
the glory belongs to the Lord of hosts who led 
us," and '' God gave us the victory," and '' Di- 
vine favour guided our footsteps," were fre- 
quent. When one is a stranger to the Boers 
and unacquainted with the simple faith which 
they place in divine guidance, these religious 
manifestations may appear inopportune in war- 
fare, but it is only necessary to observe the 
Boer burgher in all his various actions and 
emotions to know that he is sincere in his re- 
ligious beliefs, and that he endeavours to be a 
Christian in deed as well as in word. 

The Boer army, like Cromwell's troopers, 
could fight as well as pray, but in reality it was 
not a fighting organization in the sense that 
warfare was agreeable to the burghers. The 
Boers proved that they could fight when there 
was a necessity for it, but to the great majority 
of them it was heartrending to slay their fellow- 
beings. The Boer's hand was better adapted to 
the stem of a pipe than to the stock of an army 
rifle, and he would rather have been occupied 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BOER ARMY 



75 



in his usual peaceful pursuit had he not be- 
lieved that it was a holy war in which he was 
engaged. That he was not eager for fighting 
was displayed in a hundred different ways. He 
loved his home more than the laagers at the 
front, and he took advantage of every oppor- 
tunity to return to his farm and family. He 
lusted not for battle, and he seldom engaged in 
one unless he firmly believed that success de- 
pended partly upon his individual presence. 
He did not go into battle because he had the 
thirst for blood, for he abhorred the slaughter 
of men, and it was not an extraordinary spec- 
tacle to see a Boer weeping beside the corpse 
of a British soldier. On the field, after the 
Spion Kop battle, where Boer guns did their 
greatest execution, there were scores of bare- 
headed Boers who deplored the war, and amid 
ejaculations of '' Poor Tommy " and '' This use- 
less slaughter,'* brushed away the tears that 
rolled down over their brown cheeks and 
beards. A Boer was never seen to exult over 
a victory. They might say '' That is good '* 
when they heard of a Spion Kop or a Magers- 
fontein, but they never indulged in a shout or 
any of the other methods of expressing joy. 
The foreigners in the army frequently were 
beside themselves with exultation after vic- 
tories, but the Boers looked stolidly on and 
never took any part in the demonstrations. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 

When the Boer goes on a lion-hunting ex- 
pedition he must be thoroughly acquainted 
with the game countr}', he must be experienced 
in the use of the rifle, and he must know how 
to protect himself against the attacks of the 
enemy. When he is thus equipped, and he 
abandons lion hunting for the more strenuous 
life of war, the Boer is a formidable enemy, for 
he has combined in him the qualities of a gen- 
eral as well as the powers of a private soldier. 
In lion hunting the harm of having too many 
men in authority is not so fatal to the success of 
the expedition as it is in real warfare, where 
the enemy may have as many generals, but a 
larger force of men who will obey their com- 
mands. All the successes of the Boer army 
were the result of the fact that every burgher 
was a general, and to the same cause may be 
attributed every defeat. Whenever this army 
of generals combined and agreed to do a cer- 
76 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



77 



tain work it was successful, but it was unsuc- 
cessful whenever the leaders disagreed. If the 
opportunity had given birth to a man who 
would have been accepted as general of the 
generals — a man was needed who could have 
introduced discipline and training into the rudi- 
mentary militar}^ system of the country — the 
chances of Boer success would have been far 
greater. 

The leaders of the Boer army were elected 
by a vote of the people in the same manner in 
which they chose their Presidents and civil offi- 
cials. Age, ability, and military experience did 
not have any bearing on the subject, except in 
so far as they influenced the mind of the indi- 
vidual voter. Family influences, party affilia- 
tions, and religion materially affected the re- 
sult of the elections, and, as is frequently the 
case with civil officials in other countries, the 
men with the best military minds and experi. 
ence w^ere not always chosen. It was as a re- 
sult of this system that General Joubertwas put 
at the head of the army, when a younger, more 
energetic, and more warlike man should have 
been commandant general. At the last election 
for commandant general, Joubert, a Progres- 
sive, also received the support of the Conserva- 
tives, so that two years later he might not 
be a candidate for the presidency against Paul 
Kruger. 



78 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



In the same manner the commandants of the 
districts and the field cornets of the wards were 
chosen, and in the majority of cases no thought 
was taken at the time of the election of their 
military ability. The voters of a ward, the low- 
est political division in the country, elected 
their field cornet more with a view of having 
him administer the laws in times of peace 
than with a regard to his fitness to lead them 
into battle ; and in like manner the election of a 
commandant for a district, which generally con- 
sists of five wards, was more of a victory on 
account of the man's popularity in peace than 
for his presumed bravery in war. The Boer 
system of electing military leaders by vote of 
the people may have had certain advantages, 
but it had the negative quality of effacing all 
traces of authority between officers and men. 
The burgher who had assisted in electing his 
field cornet felt that that official owed him a 
certain amount of gratitude for having voted 
for him, and obeyed his orders or disobeyed 
them according as he chose to do. The field 
cornet represented authority over his men, but 
of real control of them he had none. The 
commandants were presumed to have authority 
over the field cornets and the generals over the 
commandants, but whether that rule was of any 
value could not be ascertained until after the 
will of those in lower rank was discovered. 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



79 



By this extraordinary process it happened that 
every burgher was a general, and that no gen- 
eral was greater than a burgher. 

The military officers of the Boers, w^ith the 
exception of the commandant general, were the 
same men who ruled the country in times of 
peace. War suddenly transformed pruning 
hooks into swords, and conservators of peace 
into leaders of armies. The head of the arm}^ 
was the commandant general, who was invested 
with full power to direct operations and to lead 
men. Directly under his authority were the 
assistant commandant generals, five of whom 
were appointed by the Volksraad a short time 
before the beginning of hostilities. Then fol- 
lowed in rank those who, in order to distinguish 
them from the assistant generals, were called 
vecht generals, or fighting generals. Under 
them were the commandants, the leaders of the 
field cornets of one district, whose rank was 
about that of colonels. The field cornets, who 
were in command of the men of a ward, were 
under the authority of a commandant, and 
ranked on a par with majors. The burghers of 
every ward were subdivided into squads of 
about twenty-five men, under the control of a 
corporal, whose rank was equal to that of a 
lieutenant. There were no corps, brigades, 
regiments, and companies to call for hundreds 
of officers ; it was merely a commando, whether 



8o 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



it had ten men or ten thousand, and neither the 
subdivision nor the augmentation of a force 
affected the list of officers in any way. Nor 
would such a multiplication of officers weaken 
the fighting strength of a force, for every officer, 
from commandant general to corporal, carried 
and used a rifle in every battle. 




Election of a field cornet. 



When the officers had their men on the field 
and desired to make a forward movement or an 
attack on the enemy, it was necessary to hold a 
Krijgsraad, or council of war, and this was con- 
ducted in such a manner that the most unmil- 
itary burgher's voice bore almost as much 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION gl 

weight as that of the commandant general. 
Every officer, from corporal to commandant 
general, was a member of the Krijgsraad, and 
when a plan was favoured by the majority of 
those present at the council, it became a law. 
The decision of a Krijgsraad meeting did not 
necessarily imply that it was a plan favoured by 
the best military minds at the council, for it was 
possible and legal for the opinions of sixteen 
corporals to be adopted, although fifteen gen- 
erals and commandants opposed the plan with all 
their might. Whether there ever was such a 
result is problematical, but there were man}^ 
Krijgsraads at which the opinions of the best 
and most experienced officers were cast aside 
by the votes of field cornets and corporals. 
This undoubtedly was a representative way of 
adopting the will of the people, but it fre- 
quently was exceedingly costly. 

At the Krijgsraad in Natal which determined 
that the army should abandon the positions 
along the Tugela and retire north of Ladysmith, 
the project was bitterly opposed by the generals 
who had done the bravest and best fighting in 
the colony, but the votes of the corporals, field 
cornets, and commandants outnumbered theirs, 
and there was nothing for the generals to do 
but to retire and allow Ladysmith to be relieved. 
At Mafeking scores of Krijgsraads were held for 
the purpose of arriving at a determination to 



82 THE BOERS IN WAR 

storm the town, but invariably the field cornets 
and corporals outvoted the commandants and 
generals, and refused to risk the lives of their 
men in such a hazardous attack. Even the oft- 
repeated commands of the commandant general 
to storm Maf eking were treated with contempt by 
the majority of the Krijgsraad, who constituted 
the highest military authority in the country, so 
far as they and their actions were concerned. 
When there happened to be a deadlock in the 
balloting at a Krijgsraad, it was more than 
once the case that the vote of the commandant 
general counted for less than the voice of a 
burgher. In one of the minor Krijgsraads in 
Natal a tie in the voting was ended when an 
old burgher called his corporal aside and in- 
fluenced him to change his vote. The com- 
mandant general himself had not been able to 
turn the trend of the voting, but the old burgh- 
er, who had no connection with the council 
of war, practically determined the result of the 
meeting. 

The Krijgsraad was the supreme military 
authority in the country, and its resolutions 
were the law ; all infractions of them being 
punishable by fines. The minority of a Krijgs- 
raad was obliged to assist in executing the plans 
of the majority, however impracticable or dis- 
tasteful they might be to those whose opinions 
did not prevail. There were innumerable in- 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



83 



stances where generals and commandants at- 
tended a Krijgsraad and afterward acted quite 
contrary to the resolution adopted by the coun- 
cil. In any other army such action would have 
been called disobedience of orders, and would 
have received proper punishment, but in the 
Boer army it led to little beyond personal ani- 
mosity. According to Boer military law, an 
officer offending in such a manner should have 
been arraigned before the Krijgsraad and tried 
by his fellow-officers, but such occurrences were 
extremely rare. 

One of the few instances where a man was 
arraigned before a Krijgsraad for dereliction of 
duty was after the enemy succeeded in dam- 
aging one of the " Long Toms" around Lady- 
smith. The artillery officer who was in charge 
of the gun when the dynamite was exploded in 
its muzzle was convicted of neglect of duty and 
was disgraced before the army. After the bat- 
tle of Belmont Vecht-General Jacob Prinsloo, of 
the Free State, was court-martialed for coward- 
ice and was reduced to the rank of burgher. 
This was Prinsloo's first battle, and he was 
thoroughly frightened. When some of his men 
came up to him and asked him for directions 
how to repel the advancing British force, Prins- 
loo trembled, rubbed his hands, and replied, 
** God only knows — I don't! "and fled, with all 
his men at his heels. 

7 



84 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



Two instances where commandants acted 
contrary to the decisions of the Krijgsraad were 
the costly disobedience of General Erasmus at 
Dundee and the still more costly mistake of 
Commandant Buis at Hlangwe. When the 
Boers invaded Natal and determined to attack 
the British forces then stationed at the town of 
Dundee, it was decided at a Krijgsraad that 
General Lukas Meyer should attack from the 
east and south and General Erasmus from the 
north. General Meyer occupied Talana Hill 
east of Dundee and a kopje south of the town, 
and attacked General Penn-Symons's forces at 
daybreak. General Erasmus and the Pretoria 
commando with field pieces and a '' Long Tom *' 
occupied Impati Mountain on the north, but 
when the time arrived for him to assist in the 
attack on the enemy several hundred yards 
below him he would not allow a shot to be 
fired. As a result of the miscarriage of plans 
General Meyer was compelled to retire from 
Talana Hill in the afternoon while the British 
force was enabled to escape southward into 
Ladysmith. If General Erasmus had followed 
the decision of the Krijgsraad and had assisted 
in the attack there is hardly any doubt that the 
entire force of the enemy would have been cap- 
tured. Even more disastrous was the disobe- 
dience of Commandant Buis, of the Heidelberg 
commando, who was ordered to occupy a cer- 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



85 



tain point on the Boschrand called Hlangwe 
about February 19th. The British had tried 
for several weeks to drive the Boers from the 
Boschrand, but all their attempts proved fruit- 
less. A certain commando had been holding 
Hlangwe for a long time, and Commandant Buis 
was ordered to take his commando and re- 
lieve the others by night. Instead of going to 
Hlangwe immediately that night he bivouacked 
in a small nek near by, intending to occupy the 
position the following morning. During the 
night the British discovered that the point was 
unoccupied and placed a strong force there. 
In this manner the British wedge was forced 
into the Boschrand, and shortly afterward the 
Boers were obliged to retreat across the Tugela 
and secure positions on the north bank of the 
stream. 

Of less serious consequence was General De 
la Rey's refusal to carry out a decision he him- 
self had assisted in framing. It was at Brand- 
fort, in the Free State, several weeks after 
Bloemfontein was occupied, and all the Boer 
generals in the vicinity met in Krijgsraad and 
voted to make a concerted attack upon the 
British force at Tafelkop, midway between 
Bloemfontein and Brandfort. Generals Smuts 
and Botha made a long night trek to the posi- 
tions from which they were to attack the enemy 
at daybreak. It had been arranged that Gen- 



86 THE BOERS IN WAR 

eral De la Rey's commando should open the 
attack from another point, and that no opera- 
tions should begin until after he had given a 
certain signal. The signal was never given, and 
after waiting for it several hours the other gen- 
erals returned to Brandfort, only to find that 
General De la Rey had not even moved from 
his laager. 

When the lower ranks of officers, the field 
cornets, and corporals disobeyed the mandates 
of the Krijgsraads, displayed cowardice, or mis- 
behaved in any other manner, the burghers un- 
der their command had the power of impeach- 
ing them and electing other officers to fill the 
vacancies. The corporals were elected by the 
burghers after war was begun, and they held 
their posts only so long as their behaviour met 
with the favour of those who placed them in 
authority. During the first three months of the 
war innumerable changes of that nature were 
made ; and not infrequently it was the case that 
a corporal was unceremoniously dismissed be- 
cause he had offended one of his men who hap- 
pened to wield much influence over his fellows 
in the commando. Personal popularity had 
much to do with the tenure of office, but person- 
al bravery was not allowed to go unrewarded, 
and it happened several times in the laagers 
along the Tugela that a corporal resigned his 
rank so that one of his friends who had distin- 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



87 



guished himself in a battle might have his work 
recognised and appreciated. 

However independent and irresponsible the 
Boer officer may have been, he was a man in 
irons compared with the Boer burgher. The 
burgher was bound by no laws except such as 
he made for himself. There was a state law 
which compelled him to join a commando and 
to accompany it to the front, or in default ot 
compliance to pay a small fine. As soon as he was 
'' on commando," as it was called, he became his 
own master and could laugh at Mr. Atkins 
across the way who was obliged to be attending 
constantly to various camp duties when not 
actively engaged in marching or fighting. No 
general or act of Volksraad could compel him 
to do any duty if he felt disinclined to perform 
it, and there was no power on earth which could 
force him to move out of his tent if he did not 
desire to go. In the majority of countries a man 
may volunteer to join the army, but when once 
he is a soldier he is compelled to fight; while in 
the Boer country the man was compelled to 
join the army, but was not obliged to fight 
unless he volunteered to do so. There were 
hundreds of men in the Natal laagers who never 
engaged in a battle and never fired a shot in 
the first six months of the war ; again, there 
were hundreds of men who took part in almost 
every one of the battles, whether their com- 



88 THE BOERS IN WAR 

mando was engaged or not, but who joined the 
fighting voluntarily without being under an}^ 
obligation to do so. 

When a Krijgsraad determined to make or 
resist an attack the officers at the meeting de- 
cided upon how many men were needed for the 
work. Immediately after the meeting the offi- 
cers returned to their commandos, and having 
explained to their burghers the nature and object 
of the expedition asked for volunteers. The 
officer could not call upon certain men and 
order them to take part in the purposed pro- 
ceedings ; he could only ask them to offer their 
services. It happened at times that an entire 
commando of several hundred men volunteered 
to do the work asked of them, but just as often 
it was the case that only from one tenth to one 
twentieth of the burghers expressed their will- 
ingness to accompany the expedition. 

Several days after the Spion Kop battle 
General Botha called for four hundred volun- 
teers to take part in resisting an attack that it 
was feared would be made. There were almost 
ten thousand men in the environs of Ladysmith 
at that time, but it was with the utmost diffi- 
culty that the four hundred men could be gath- 
ered. Two hundred men came from one com- 
mando, one hundred and fift3^-three from an- 
other, twenty-eight from a third, fifteen from 
another, and five from another, making a total of 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



89 



four hundred and one men — one more than was 
called for. When Commandant-General Joubert, 
at his hoofd or head laager, at Modderspruit, 
received an urgent request for re-enforcements, 
he was not able to order one of the commandos 
that was in laager near him to go to the assist- 
ance of the fighting burghers ; he could only 
make a request of the different commandants 
and field cornets to ask their men to volunteer 
for the service. If the men refused to go, then 
naturally the re-enforcements could not be sent, 
and those who were in dire need of assistance 
had the alternative of continuing the struggle 
alone or of yielding a position to the enemy. 

The relief of Ladysmith was made possible by 
the fact that Generals Botha and Erasmus did not 
receive re-enforcements from Commandant-Gen- 
eral Joubert, who was north of Ladysmith with 
almost ten thousand men. Botha and Erasmus 
had been fighting for almost a week without a 
day's intermission, and their two thousand men 
were utterly exhausted when Joubert was asked 
to send re-enforcements, at least enough to re- 
lieve the men from fighting for a day or two. 
A Krijgsraad had decided that the entire army 
should retreat to the Biggarsberg, and Joubert 
could not, or at least would not, send any burgh- 
ers to the Tugela. The result was that Botha 
was compelled to retreat and to abandon posi- 
tions which could have been held indefinitely if 



90 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



there had been military discipline in the com- 
mandos. It was not always the case that com- 
mandants and generals were obliged to go beg- 
ging for volunteers, and there were innumerable 
instances when every man of a commando did 
the work assigned to him without a murmur. 
During the Natal campaign the force was so 
large and the work seemed so comparatively 
easy that the majority of the burghers never 
went to the firing line; but when British suc- 
cesses in the Free State placed the Boers on the 
defensive, it was not so safe to remain behind 
in the laagers and allow others more willing to 
engage in the fighting. 

General Cronje was able to induce a much 
larger percentage of his men to fight than 
Commandant-General Joubert, the reasons for 
this being that he was much firmer with his 
men, and that he moved from one place to an- 
other more frequently than Joubert. Toward 
the end of General Cronje's campaign all his 
men were willing to go into battle, because they 
realized that they must fight, a feeling that 
had been much in default in the Natal army. 
When a Boer realized that he must fight or lose 
his life or a battle, he would fight as few other 
men were able to do ; but when he imagined 
that his presence at the firing line was not im- 
perative he might choose to remain in laager. 
There were hundreds of burghers who took 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



91 



part in almost every battle in Natal, composed 
of persons, who, understanding the frame of 
mind of some of their countrymen, determined 
that they must take upon themselves the respon- 
sibilities of fighting and winning battles. Among 
those who were most forward in fighting were 
the Johannesburg police, the much- despised 
'' Zarps '* of peaceful times ; the Pretoria com- 
mando, and the younger men of other com- 
mandos. There Avere many old Boers who left 
their laagers whenever they heard the report of 
a gun, but the ages of the great majority of 
those who were killed or injured were between 
seventeen and thirty years. 

After the British captured Bloemfontein and 
the memorable Krijgsraad at Kroonstad deter- 
mined that guerrilla warfare should thereafter 
be followed, it was not so easy a matter for a 
burgher to remain behind in the laagers, for the 
majority of the ox wagons and other camp para- 
phernalia were sent home, and laager life was 
not so attractive as before. Commandos re- 
mained at one place only a short time, and there 
was almost a daily opportunity for a brush with 
the enemy. The war had been going on for six 
months, but many of the men had not had their 
first taste of actual war till then ; and, after the 
first battle had been safely passed through, the 
succeeding ones were regarded with compara- 
tive indfference. When General Christian De 



92 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Wet began his campaign in the eastern part of 
the Free State, there were hardly enough men 
left in the laagers to guard them properly when 
battles were in progress, and in the battles at 
Sannaspost, Mostershoek, and Wepener, prob- 
ably ninety-nine per cent of his men took part in 
every engagement. In Natal the real fighting 
spirit was lacking in the majority of the men, 
and Commandant-General Joubert might have 
been swept aside from the path to Durban ; but 
months afterward, when the burgher learned 
that his services were actually needed, and that 
if he did not fight he was liable to be captured 
and sent to St. Helena, he polished his Mauser 
and fought as hard and well as he was able. 

The same carelessness or indifference which 
manifested itself throughout the early part of 
the Natal campaign with regard to the necessity 
of assisting in the fighting was evident in that 
all-important part of an army's work — the 
guarding of the laagers. The Boers did not 
have sentries or outposts as they are understood 
in trained armies, but they had what was called 
a '' Brandwacht/' or fire guard, which consisted 
of a hundred men or more, who were supposed 
to take positions at a certain distance from the 
laagers and remain there until daybreak. These 
men were volunteers secured by the corporal, 
who was responsible to his field cornet for a 
certain number of men every night. It was 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



93 



never made compulsory upon any one to go on 
Brandwacht, but the duty was not considered 
irksome, and there were always as many volun- 
teers as were required for the work. The men 
on Brandwacht carried with them blankets, 




A Boer picket in early morning. 

pipes, and kettles, and, after reaching the point 
which they were to occupy during the night, 
they tethered their horses to one of their feet 
and made themselves comfortable with pipe and 
coffee. When the enemy was known to be 
near by, the Brandwacht kept awake as a matter 



94 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



of personal safety, but when there seemed to be 
no danger of attack he fastened his blankets 
around his body and, using his saddle for a pil- 
low, slept until the sun rose. There was a mild 
punishment for those who slept while on this 
duty, and occasionally the burgher found that 
some one had abstracted the bolt of his rifle 
during the night. When the corporal produced 
the bolt as evidence against him in the morning 
and sentenced him to carry a stone or a box of 
biscuits on his head the burgher might decline 
to be punished, and no one could say aught 
against his determination. 

The Boer scouts, or spies as they were called, 
received a fine tribute from Sir George White, 
the British commander at Ladysmith. In a 
speech which he delivered at Capetown, Sir 
George said : 

'' All through this campaign, from the first 
day the Boers crossed the frontier to the relief 
of Ladysmith, I and others who have been in 
command near me have been hampered by their 
excellent system of intelligence, for which I give 
them all credit. I wish to goodness that they 
had neglected it, for I could not move a gun, 
even if I did not give the order till midnight, 
but they knew it by daylight next morning. 
And they had their agents who gave them their 
intelligence through thick and thin. I locked 
up everybody who I thought could go and tell, 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



95 



but somehow or other the intelligence went on. 
I had sixteen miles of a perimeter to watch, and 
I could not prevent the information from get- 
ting over it." 

The Boer was an effective scout because he 
was familiar with the country and because his 
eyes were far better than those of any of the 
men against whom he was pitted. The South 
African atmosphere is extraordinarily clear, and 
every person has a long range of vision; but the 
Boer, who was accustomed to the climatic con- 
ditions, could distinguish between Boer and 
Briton where the stranger could barely see a 
moving object. Field glasses were almost 
valueless to Boer scouts, and few of them were 
carried by any one except the generals and com_ 
mandants, who secured them from the war de- 
partment before the beginning of the war. 
There was no distinct branch of the army whose 
exclusive duty it was to scout, and there was 
even greater lack of organization in the matter 
of securing information concerning the move- 
ments of the enemy than in the other depart- 
ments of the army's work. When a general or 
commandant felt that it was necessary to ob- 
tain accurate information concerning the enemy's 
strength and whereabouts, he asked for volun- 
teers to do the work. Frequently during the 
Natal campaign no scouting was done for days, 
and the generals were absolutely ignorant of 



96 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



everything in connection with the enemy. Later 
in the campaign several scouting corps com- 
posed of foreign volunteers were organized, and 
thereafter the Boers depended wholly upon the 
information they secured. 

There was no regulation which forbade 
burghers from leaving the laagers at any time 
or from proceeding in any direction, and much 
of the information that reached the generals 
was obtained from these rovers over the veld. 
It was extremely difficult for a man who did not 
have the appearance of a burgher to ride over 
the veld for more than a mile without being 
hailed by a Boer, who seemed to have risen out 
of the earth unnoticed. '' Where are you going? " 
or ''Where are you coming from?'* were his 
invariable salutations, and if the stranger was 
unable to give a satisfactory reply or show 
proper passports he was commanded, '' Hands 
up!" The burghers were constantly on the 
alert when abroad on the veld, whether they 
were merely wandering about, leaving for home, 
or returning to the laager, and as soon as they 
secured any information which they believed 
was valuable they dashed away to the nearest 
telegraph or heliograph station and reported it 
to their general or commandant. In addition to 
this valuable attribute the Boers had the advan- 
tage of being among white and black friends 
who could assist them in a hundred different 



THE ARMY ORGANIZATION 



97 



ways in obtaining information concerning the 
enemy, and all these circumstances combined to 
warrant General White's estimate of the Boer's 
intelligence department, which, notwithstanding 
its efficiency, was more or less mythical. 

In no department or branch of. the army was 
there any military discipline or system except 
in the two small bodies of men known as the 
State Artillery of the Transvaal and the State 
Artillery of the Free State. These organizations 
were in existence many years before the war was 
begun, and had regular drills and practice which 
were maintained when they were at the front. 
The Johannesburg police also had a form of dis- 
cipline, which, however, was not strict enough 
to prevent the men from mutinying when they 
imagined that they had fought the whole war 
themselves, and wanted to have a vacation in 
order that they might visit their homes. The 
only instance of real military discipline that was 
to be found in the entire Boer army was that 
which was maintained by Field Cornet A. L. 
Thring, of the Kroonstad commando, who had 
a roll call and inspection of rifles every morn- 
ing. This extraordinary procedure was not 
relished by the burghers, who made an indignant 
protest to General Christian De Wet. The gen- 
eral upheld the field cornet's action and told the 
men that if all the officers had instituted similar 
methods more success might have attended the 



98 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



army's operations. With the exceptions of the 
instances cited, every man was a disciplinary 
law unto himself, and when he transgressed that 
law no one would call him to account but his 
conscience. There were laws on the subject of 
obedience in the army and all had penalties at- 
tached to them, but it was extremely rare that a 
burgher was punished. When he endured dis- 
cipline he did it because he cared to do so and 
not because he feared those who had authority 
over him. He was always deeply religious, 
and he felt that in being obedient he was find- 
ing favour in the eyes of the Providence that 
watched over his cause. It was as much his 
religion as his ability to aim unerringly that 
made the Boer a good soldier. If the Boer 
army had been composed of an irreligious, un- 
disciplined body of men instead of the psalm- 
singing farmers it would have been conquered 
by itself. The religion of the Boers was their 
discipline. 



CHAPTER V 

THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 

The disparity between the British and Boer 
armies seemed to be so great at the time the 
war was begun that the patriotic Englishman 
could hardly be blamed for asserting that the 
struggle would be of only a month's duration. 
On the one side was an army every branch of 
which was highly developed and specialized 
and kept in constant practice by many wars 
waged under widely different conditions. Back 
of it was a great nation with millions of men and 
unlimited resources to draw upon. At the head 
of the army were men who knew the theory 
and practice of warfare as few leaders of other 
armies had had opportunities of learning them. 
Opposed to this army was practically an aggre- 
gation of farmers hastily summoned together 
and utterly without discipline or training. 
They were unable to replace with another a 
single fallen burgher, and were prevented from 
adding by importation to their stock of am- 
munition a single rifle or a single pound of 

8 99 



-lOO 'I'HE BOERS IN WAR 

powder. Their generals were farmers who 
perhaps did not know that there existed a 
theory of warfare and much less knew how 
modern wars were fought and won. The means 
by which thirty thousand farmers of no mili- 
tary training were enabled to withstand the 
opposition of several hundred thousand well- 
trained soldiers for the greater part of a year 
must be sought in the military system which 
gave such a marvellous advantage. Such suc- 
cess as attended the Boer army was undoubt- 
edly the success of its method of warfare against 
that of the British. 

The Boers themselves were not aware that 
they had a military system ; at least none of 
the generals or men acknowledged the exist- 
ence of one, and it was not an easy matter to find 
evidence that battles were fought and move- 
ments made according to certain established 
rules which suggested a system. The Boers 
undoubtedly had a military method of their 
own which was naturally developed in their 
many wars with natives and with the British 
troops. It might not have been a system ac- 
cording to the correct definition of the term — it 
might have been called an instinct for fighting 
or a common-sense way of attempting to defeat 
an enemy — but it was something which existed 
in the mind of every citizen of the two repub- 
lics. It was not to be learned from books or 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM jqi 

teachers, nor could it be taught to those who 
were not born in the country. Whatever that 
method was, it was extremely rudimentary, and 
was never developed to any extent by the disci- 
pline and training which any military system 
necessarily requires in order to make it effect- 
ive. There was a natural way of proceeding 
used by the Boers when hunting for lion or 
buck, and it was the same as that which they 
applied against the British army. Every Boer 
was expert in the use of his rifle ; he had an 
excellent eye for country and cover ; he was 
able to tell at a glance whether a hill or an un- 
dulation in the ground was suitable for fighting 
purposes, whether it could be defended and 
whether it offered facilities for attack or retreat. 
Just as every Boer was a general, so every 
burgher had in his mind a certain military plan 
fashioned after the needs and opportunities of 
the country, and this was their system — a sort 
of national as well as natural art of war. 

In the British army as well as in other mod- 
ern armies the soldier is supposed to under- 
stand nothing, know nothing, and do nothing 
but give obedience to the commands of his offi- 
cers. He is expected to learn little of anything 
except the evolutions he is taught on the drill 
grounds. It is presumed that he is stupid, and 
the idea appears to be to prevent him from be- 
ing otherwise, in order that he may the better 



I02 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



perform his function in the great machine to 
which a trained army has been likened. He is 
regarded as if he were an animal of low mental 
grade, whose functions are merely to carry out 
the orders of the man who has been chosen by 
beings of superior intelligence to command him. 
When the man who has been selected in times of 
peace to lead the men in times of war fails, on 
meeting the enemy, to make good use of the 
military knowledge which it was presumed he 
possessed, the soldiers who look to him for direc- 
tion generally become useless and oftentimes 
worse than useless, inasmuch as their panic is 
likely to become infectious among neighbouring 
bodies of soldiers, even though they are pro- 
vided with better leaders. 

In trained armies the value of a soldier is a 
reflection of the value of the officer who com- 
mands him, and the worth of the army is great 
in proportion to the ability of its generals. In 
the Boer army the generals and commandants 
were of much less importance, for the reason 
that the Boer burgher acted almost always 
on his own initiative. The generals were of 
more service before the beginning of a battle 
than while it was in progress. When a burgher 
became aware of the presence of the enemy 
his own knowledge, his native military sense, 
told him the best manner in which to attack 
his adversary as well as his general could have 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



103 



informed him. The generals and other officers 
were of prime importance in leading the burgh- 
ers to the point where the enemy was likely to 
be found, but when that locality was reached 
their period of usefulness ended, for the burgh- 
ers knew how to wage the battle as well as 
they did. Generally speaking, the most strik- 
ing difference between the Boer army and a 
trained army was the difference in the distribu- 
tion of intelligence. All the intelligence of a 
trained army is centred in the officers ; in the 
Boer army there was much practical military 
sense and alertness of mind diffused throughout 
the entire force. 

Mr. Disraeli once said : '' Doubtless to think 
with vigour, with clearness, and with depth in 
the recess of a cabinet, is a fine intellectual 
demonstration ; but to think with equal vigour, 
clearness, and depth among bullets, appears the 
loftiest exercise and the most complete triumph 
of the human faculties." Without attempting to 
intimate that every burgher was a man of the 
high mental attainments described by the emi- 
nent British statesman, it must be acknowledged 
that the fighting Boer was a man of more than 
ordinary calibre. 

In battle the Boer burgher was practically 
his own general. He had an e) e which quickly 
grasped a situation, and he never waited for an 
order from an officer to take advantage of it. 



I04 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



When he saw that he could with safety ap- 
proach the enemy more closely, he did so on 
his own responsibility, and when it became evi- 
dent to him that it would be advantageous to 
occupy a different position in order that he 
might stem the advance of the enemy, he acted 
entirely on his own initiative. He remained in 
one position just as long as he considered it 
safe to do so, and if conditions warranted he 
went forward, or if they were adverse he re- 
treated, whether there was an order from an 
officer or not. When he saw that the burghers 
in another part of the field were hard pressed 
by the enemy, he deserted his own position and 
went to their assistance; or when his own posi- 
tion became untenable, in his own opinion, he 
simply vacated it and went to another spot 
where bullets and shells were less thick. If he 
saw a number of the enemy detached from the 
main body of their own force, and believed that 
they could be taken prisoners, he enlisted a 
number of the burghers who had the same 
opinion, and made an effort to capture them, 
whether there was an officer close at hand or 
not. 

No one was overcharged with orders ; in fact, 
the lack of them was more noticeable, and it 
was well that it was so, for the Boer burgher 
disliked to be ordered, and always did things 
with better grace when he acted spontaneously. 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



105 



This fact was illustrated by an incident in the 
fight of Modderspruit, where two young Boers 
saved an entire commando from falling into the 
hands of the enemy. Lieutenant Oelfse, of the 
State artillery, and Reginald Sheppard, of the 
Pretoria commando, observed a strong force 
of the British advancing toward a kopje where 
the Krugersdorp commando was concealed. 
The two men saw that the Krugersdorpers 
would be cut off in a short time if they were 
not informed of the British advance, so they 
determined to plunge across the open veld, six 
hundred yards from the enemy's guns, and tell 
them of their danger. No officer could have 
compelled the men to undertake such a hazard- 
ous journey across a bullet-swept plain, but 
Oelfse and Sheppard acted on their own re- 
sponsibility, succeeded in reaching the Krugers- 
dorp commando without being hit, and gave 
the commandant the information which undoubt- 
edly saved him and his men from being cap- 
tured. Incidents of like nature occurred in al- 
most every battle of the campaign, and occa- 
sionally the service thus rendered voluntarily by 
the burghers was of momentous consequence, 
even if the act itself seemed trivial at the time. 

A second feature of the Boer army and 
quite as important as the freedom of action of 
its individuals was its mobility. Every burgher 
was mounted on a fleet horse or pony, and con- 



I06 THE BOERS IN WAR 

sequently his movements on the battlefield, 
whether in an advance or in the retreat, were 
many times more rapid than those of the enemy 
— an advantage which was of inestimable value 
both during an engagement and in the intervals 
between battles when it was necessary to secure 
new positions. During the progress of a battle 
the Boers were able to leave a certain point 
for a time, mount their horses, and, riding to an- 
other position, throw their full strength against 
the latter, while still remaining in such close 
touch with the former post that it was possi- 
ble to return and defend it in a very short space 
of time. With the aid of their horses they 
could make such a sudden rush from one posi- 
tion to another that the infantry of the enemy 
could be surrounded and cut off from all com- 
munication with the body of its army almost 
before it was known that any Boers were in the 
vicinity ; and it was due to that fact that the 
Boers were able to make so many captures of 
large numbers. 

The fighting along the Tugela furnished 
many striking examples of the Boers' extreme 
mobility. There was a constant dashing from 
one position to another — an attack here now, 
another there to-morrow. This incessant move- 
ment was made necessary by the display of 
energy by the British, whose thrice-larger 
forces kept the Boers in ^ state of continued 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



107 



ferment. On one side of the river, stretched 
out from south of Spionkop, in the west, to 
Helpmakaar, in the east, were thirty thou- 
sand British troops watching for a weak 
point where they might cross, and attacking 
wherever there seemed to be the slightest op- 
portunity of breaking through ; on the other 
side were between two and three thousand 
mounted Boers dashiiig from one point to 
another in the long line of territory to be 
guarded, and repelling the attacks wherever 
they were made. The country was in their 
favour, it is true, but it was not so favourable 
that a handful of men could defend it against 
thousands, and it was partly due to the great 
ease and rapidity with which the Boers could 
move from one place to another that Ladysmith 
remained besieged so long. The mobility of 
the Boers was again well demonstrated in the 
retreat of the burghers from the environs of 
Ladysmith. After the Krijgsraad decided to 
withdraw the forces into the Biggarsberg it re- 
quired only a few hours for all the many com- 
mandos to leave the positions they had held so 
long, to load their impedimenta, and to be well 
on the way to the north. The departure was 
so rapid that it surprised even those who were 
in Ladysmith. One day the Boers were shell- 
ing the town as usual, and all the commandos 
were observed in the same positions which they 




be 
C 

3 









H 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 109 

had occupied for several months ; the following 
day not a single Boer was to be seen anywhere. 
They had quietly mounted their horses by night 
and before tlie sun rose in the morning they 
were trekking north beyond Modderspruit and 
Elandslaagte on the way to Glencoe. 

General Cronje's flight from Magersfontein 
was also accomplished with great haste and in 
good order; but probably the finest example 
of the Boers' mobility was the magnificent re- 
treat along the Basuto border of Generals Gro- 
bler, Olivier, and Lemmer with their 6,000 
men, when the enemy was known to be in great 
strength within several days' march of them. 
After the capture of Cronje at Paardeberg the 
three generals, who had been conducting the 
campaign in the eastern provinces of Cape Col- 
ony were in a most dangerous position, having 
the enemy in the rear, the left, and left front, 
the neutral Basuto land on the right front, and 
only a small strip of territory along the western 
borders of the Basuto country being apparently 
free of the enemy. The British were in Bloem- 
fontein and the surrounding country, and it 
seemed almost impossible that the 6,000 men 
could ever extricate themselves from such a 
position and join the Boer forces in the north. 
It would have been a comparatively easy mat- 
ter for 6,000 mounted men to make the journey 
if they had not been loaded down with im- 



no THE BOERS IN WAR 

pedimenta, but the retreating generals were 
obliged to carry with them all their huge 
transport wagons and heavy camping para- 
phernalia. The trek northward was begun near 
Colesburg on March 12th, and when all the dif- 
ferent commandos had joined the main column 
the 6,000 horsemen, the 750 transport wagons, 
the 2,000 natives, and 12,000 cattle formed a 
line extending more than 24 miles. The scouts 
who were despatched westward from the col- 
umn to ascertain the whereabouts of the enemy 
reported large forces of British cavalry sixty 
and seventy miles distant, but for some inex- 
plicable reason the British made no attempt 
to cut off the retreat of the three generals, 
and on March 28th they reached Kroonstad, 
having traversed almost 400 miles of territory 
in the comparatively short time of sixteen days. 
Sherman's march to the sea was made under 
extraordinary conditions, but the retreat of the 
three generals was fraught with much great- 
er dangers and difficulties. Sherman passed 
through a fertile country, and had an enemy 
which was disheartened. The Boer generals 
had an enemy flushed with its first victories, 
while the country through which they passed 
was mountainous and muddy. If the column 
had been captured so soon after the Paardeberg 
disaster, the. relief of Kimberley and the relief of 
Lady smith, the event might have been so dis- 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM m 

heartening to the remaining Boer commandos 
that the war would have been ended at that 
time. It was a magnificent retreat, and well 
worthy to be placed in the scroll of honour 
with Cronje's noble stand at Paardeberg, with 
Spion Kop, and Magersfontein. 

The Boer army was capable of moving 
rapidly under almost any circumstances. The 
British army demonstrated upon many occa- 
sions that it could not move more than two or 
three miles an hour when the column was ham- 
pered with transport wagons and camping para- 
phernalia, and frequently it was impossible to 
proceed at that pace for many consecutive 
hours. A Boer commando easily travelled six 
miles an hour, and not infrequently, when there 
was a necessity for rapid motion, seven and even 
eight miles an hour were traversed. When Gen- 
eral Lucas Meyer moved his commandos along 
the Natal border at the outset of the war, and 
learned that General Penn-Symons was located 
at Dundee, he made a night march of almost 
forty miles in six hours and occupied Talana 
Hill, a mile distant from the enemy, who were 
ignorant of the Boers' proximity until the camp 
was shelled at daybreak. When General De Wet 
learned that Colonel Broadwood was moving 
westward from Thaba N'Chu on March 30th, 
he was in laager several miles east of Brand- 
fort, but it required only a few minutes for all 



112 THE BOERS IN WAR 

the burghers to be on their horses and ready 
to proceed toward the enemy. The journey of 
twenty-five miles to Sannaspost, near the Bloem- 
fontein waterworks, was accomplished in the re- 
markably short time of five hours, while Colonel 
Broadwood's forces consumed seven hours in 
making the ten-mile journey from Thaba N'Chu 
to the same place. The British column was un- 
able to move more rapidly on account of its 
large convoy of wagons, and could not make 
even as great progress as that made by the 
trekking party of the three generals who were 
similarly hampered. 

The Boers rarely attempted to trek for any 
considerable distance with their heavy wagons 
when they were aware of the presence of the 
enemy in the vicinity. Ox wagons were al- 
ways left behind, and as only a small number of 
light vehicles bearing provisions and ammuni- 
tion were taken, they were able to move with 
greater rapidity than their opponents. Fre- 
quently they entered dangerous territory with 
only a few days' provisions, and risked a famine 
of food and ammunition rather than load them- 
selves down with many lumbering wagons which 
were likely to retard their progress. After fight- 
ing the battle at Moester s Hoek, General De 
Wet had hardly three days' food and very little 
ammunition with him. Yet rather than delay 
his march and send for more wagons he pro- 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



113 



ceeded to Wepener, where after several days* 
fighting both his food and ammunition became 
exhausted. He was then obliged to lie idle 
around the enem}- and await the arrival of the 
supplies which he might have carried with him 




A burgher and his breakfast. 

at the outset of the trek had he cared to risk 
such an impediment to his rapid movements. 

One of the primar}- reasons why the Boers 
could move more rapidly than the British was 
the difference in the weight carried by their 
horses. The Boer paid no attention to artistic 



114 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



accoutrement when he went to war, and conse- 
quently he carried nothing that was not abso- 
lutely essential. His saddle was less than half 
the weight of a British saddle, and was almost 
all the equipment he carried when on a trek. 
The Boer rider and equipment, including 
saddle, rifle, blankets, and a food supply, 
rarely weighed more than two hundred and 
fifty pounds, which was not a heavy load for 
a horse to carry. A British cavalryman and 
his equipment of heavy saddle, sabre, carbine, 
and saddlebags rarely weighed less than four 
hundred pounds, a burden which soon tires a 
horse. Again, almost every Boer had two 
horses, so that when one had been ridden for 
an hour or more he was relieved and led, while 
the other was used. In this manner the Boers 
were able to travel from twelve to fourteen 
hours in a day when it was absolutely neces- 
sary to reach a certain point at a given time. 
Six miles an hour was the rate of progress ex- 
pected of horses in normal condition, and when 
a forced march was attempted they could travel 
sixty and seventy miles in a day, and be in good 
condition the following morning to undertake 
another journey of equal length. Small com- 
mandos often covered sixty and seventy miles 
in a day, especially during the fighting along 
the Tugela; while after the battles of Poplar 
Grove and Abraham's Kraal and the capture of 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



115 



Bloemfontein, it seemed as if the entire army 
in the Free State were moving northward at a 
rate of speed comparable with that of an express 
train. The mobility of the Boer army was then 
on a par with that of the British army after the 
battle of Dundee, and it was difficult to deter- 
mine which of the two deserved the palm for 
the best display of accelerated motion. 

A most striking feature of the Boer sys- 
tem of warfare was the manner in which each 
individual protected himself, as far as possible, 
from danger. In lion hunting it is an axiom 
that the hunter must not pursue a wounded 
lion into tall grass or underbrush, lest the pur- 
suer be attacked. In the Boer army a natural 
impulse, common to all the burghers, led them 
to seek their own safety whenever danger 
seemed to be near. Men who follow the most 
peaceful pursuits value their lives highly. They 
do not assume great risks even if great ends are 
to be attained. The majority of the Boers were 
farmers who saw no glory in attempting to gain 
a great success the attainment of which made 
it necessary that they should risk their lives 
recklessly. It seemed as if each man realized 
that his death meant a great loss to the Boer 
army, already small, and that he did not intend 
to diminish its size if he could possibly prevent 
it. The Boer was quick in noting when the 
proper moment arrived for retreat, and he was 
9 



Il6 THE BOERS IN WAR 

not slothful in acting upon his observations. 
Retreating when it was time was one of the 
Boers' characteristics, but it could not be called 
an advantage, for frequently many of them 
misjudged the occasion, and left the field when 
a battle was almost won. At Poplar Grove 
the Boers might have carried the day if the 
majority of the burghers had remained and 
fought an hour or two longer instead of with- 
draAving precipitately when the individuals de- 
termined that safety was to be found only in 
flight. At Elandslaagte the foreigners under 
General Kock did not seize the proper moment 
for retreat, but continued with the fighting and 
were almost annihilated by the Lancers because 
of their lack of judgment. The burghers of the 
Free State, in particular, had the instinct of re- 
treating abnormally developed, and whenever a 
battle was in progress large numbers of them 
could be observed going in an opposite direction 
as rapidly as their ponies could carry them over 
the veld. The lack of discipline in the commandos 
made such practices possible ; in fact, there was 
no rule or law by which a burgher could be pre- 
vented from retreating or deserting whenever 
he felt that he did not care to participate in a 
battle. After the British occupation of Bloem- 
fontein there was a small skirmish about eight 
miles north of that cit}^ at a place called Tafel 
Kop which sent the Free Staters running in all 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 117 

directions. The veld seemed to be tilled with 
deserters, and at every farmhouse there were 
from two to six able-bodied men who had fled 
when they believed themselves to be in grave 
danger. 

Foolish men attribute all the moral courage 
in the world to the soldiers of their own coun- 
try, but Nature made a wise distribution of that 
gift, and not all the Boers were cowards. Boer 
generals with onl}- a few hundred men time and 
again attacked thousands of British soldiers and 
frequently vanquished them. General Botha's 
twenty-five hundred men held out for a week 
against General Buller's thirty or forty thou- 
sand, and General Cronje with his four thou- 
sand burghers surrendered to not less than forty 
thousand men and one hundred and fifty heavy 
guns under Field-Marshal Lord Roberts. Those 
two examples of Boer bravery would suffice to 
prove that the South African farmers had moral 
courage of no mean order if there were not a 
thousand and one other splendid records of 
bravery. The burghers did not always lie be- 
hind their shelter until the enemy had come 
within several himdred 3^ards and then bowl 
him over with deadl)' accurac3^ At the Plat- 
rand fight near Ladysmith on January 6th the 
Boers charged and captured British positions, 
drove the defenders out, and did it so success- 
fully that only a few Boers were killed. The 



Il8 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Spion Kop fight, a second Majuba Hill, was won 
after one of the finest displays of moral courage 
in the war. It requires bravery of the highest 
type for a small body of men to climb a steep 
hill in the face of an enemy which is three 
times greater numerically and armed with larger 
and more guns, yet that was the case with the 
Boers at Spion Kop. There were but few 
battles in the entire campaign in which the 
Boer forces were not vastly outnumbered by the 
enemy, who usually had from twice to twenty 
times their number of cannon. Yet the burgh- 
ers were well aware of the fact and did not allow 
it to interfere with their plans; nor did they dis- 
play great temerity in seeking battle with such 
a foe. When Lord Roberts and his three thou- 
sand cavalry entered Jacobsdal there were less 
than one hundred arm.ed Boers in the town, but 
they made a determined stand against the enemy 
and in a street fight a large percentage of the 
burghers fell, their blood mingling with that of 
those they had slain. 

Large bodies of Boers rarely attacked and 
never resisted the enemy on level stretches of 
veld — not because they lacked courage to do so, 
but because the}^ saw the futility of such action. 
After the British drove the Boers out of the 
kopjes east and northeast of Bloemfontein, the 
burghers had no broken country suited to their 
particular style of warfare, and they retreated 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



119 



to the Vaal without making great efforts to stop 
the advance of the enemy. The Boer generals 
knew that the British were equipped with in- 
numerable cannon which could sweep the level 
veld for several miles before them and make 
the ground untenable for the riflemen, the main- 
stay of the Boer army. When they were on 
hills the Boers were able to intrench themselves 
so thoroughly that the fire of several hundred 
heavy guns made hardly any impression on 
them, but as soon as they attempted those tac- 
tics on level ground the results were most dis- 
astrous. At Colenso and Magersfontein the 
burghers remained in their trenches on the hills 
while thousands of shrapnel and other shells ex- 
ploded above and around them, but very few 
men were injured, and when the British in- 
fantry advanced under cover of the shell fire 
the Boers merely waited until the enemy had 
approached to within several hundred yards 
and then assailed them with rifle fire. Trenches 
always afforded perfect safety from shell fire, 
and on that account the Boers were able to 
cope long and well with the British in the fight- 
ing along the Tugela and around Kimberley. 
The Boers generallv remained quietly in their 
trenches and made no reply to the British can- 
non fire, however hot it was. The British gen- 
erals several times mistook this silence as an 
indication that the Boers had evacuated the 



I20 THE BOERS IN WAR 

trenches, and sent forward bodies of infantry 
to occupy the positions. When the infantry 
reached the Boer zone of shooting they usu- 
ally met with a terrific Mauser fire that could 
not be stemmed, however gallant their at- 
tacks might be. Hundreds of British soldiers 
lost their lives while going forward under 
shell fire to seize a position which it was pre- 
sumed by the generals were unoccupied by the 
Boers. 

There were innumerable instances also of ex- 
traordinary brave acts by individual burghers, 
but it was extremely difficult to hear of them, 
owing to the Boers' disinclination to discuss a 
battle in its details. No Boer ever referred of 
his own volition to his exploits or those of his 
friends, and at any time only in the most in- 
definite manner. He related the story of a battle 
in much the same manner that he told of the till- 
ing of his fields or the herding of his cattle, and 
when there was any part of it pertaining to his 
own actions he passed it over without comment. 
It seemed as if every one was fighting, not for 
his own glorification, but for the success of his 
country's army, and consequently there was 
little hero worship. Individual acts of bravery 
entitled the fortunate person to have his name 
mentioned in the Staats-Courant, the Govern- 
ment gazette, but hardly any attention was paid 
to the search for heroes, and only the names of 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 121 

a few men were even chronicled in the columns 
of that periodical. 

One of the bravest men in the Natal cam- 
paign was a young Pretoria burgher named Van 
Gaz who in his youth had an accident which 
made it necessary that his right arm should be 
amputated at the elbow. Later in life he was 
injured in one of the native wars, and the upper 
arm was amputated, so that when he joined a 
commando he had only the left arm. It was an 
extraordinary spectacle to observe young Van 
Gaz holding his carbine between his knees 
while loading it with cartridges and quite as 
strange to see the agility with which he dis- 
charged his rifle with one hand. He was in the 
van of the storming party at Spion Kop, where 
a bullet passed completely through his chest. 
He continued, however, to work his rifle between 
his knees and to shoot with his left arm, and 
was one of the first men to reach the summit of 
the hill, where he snatched the rifles from the 
hands of two British soldiers. After the battle 
was won he was carried to a hospital by several 
other burghers, but a month afterward he was 
again at the front at the Tugela, going into ex- 
posed positions and shouting : '' Come on, fel- 
lows ; here is a good chance ! '' His companions 
desired to elect him their field cornet, but he 
refused the honour. 

Evert Le Roux and Herculaas Nel, of the 



122 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



Swaziland police, and two of the best scouts in 
the Boer army, were constantly engaged in 
recklessly daring enterprises, none of which, 
however, was quite equal to their actions on 
April 2ist, when the environs of Ladysmith had 
been in British hands for almost two months. 
The two men went out on patrol and by night 
crept up a kopje behind which about three 
hundred British cavalrymen were bivouacking. 
The men were twenty miles away from their 
laagers at Dundee and only a short distance 
from Ladysmith, but they lay down and slept 
on the other side of the kopje and only a hun- 
dred yards from the cavalrymen. In the morn- 
ing the British cavalry was divided into three 
squads and all started for Ladysmith. Le Roux 
and Nel swept down toward the last squad and 
called '' Hands up ! '* to one of the men in the 
van. The cavalryman promptly held up his 
hands and a minute afterward surrendered his 
gun and himself, while the remainder of the 
squad fled precipitately. The two scouts, with 
their prisoner, quickly made a detour of another 
kopje and appeared in front of the first squad 
of whom they made a similar demand. One of 
the cavalrymen, who was in advance of the 
others, surrendered without attempting to make 
any resistance, while the others turned quickly 
to the right and rode headlong into a deep sluit. 
Le Roux shot the horse of one of the men be- 



THE BOER MILITARY SYSTEM 



123 



fore he reached the sluit ; loaded the unhorsed 
man on one of the other prisoners' horses and 
then pursued the fleeing cavalrymen almost to 
the city limits of Ladysmith. 

Major Albrecht, the head of the Free State 
Artillery, was one of the bravest men in General 
Cronje's commando, and his display of courage 
at the battle of Magersfontein was not less ex- 
traordinary than that which he made later in 
the river bed at Paardeburg. At Magersfontein 
Albrecht and two of his artillerymen operated 
two cannon which were located behind schanzes 
twenty feet apart. The British had more than 
fifty cannon, which they turned upon the Boer 
guns whenever one of them was discharged. 
After a short time the fire became so hot that 
Albrecht sent his assistants to places of safety 
and worked the guns alone. For eight hours 
the intrepid Free State artilleryman jumped 
from one cannon to another, returning the fire 
whenever there was a lull in the enemy's attack, 
and seeking safety behind the schanze when 
shells were falling too rapidly. It was an un- 
even contest, but the bravery of one man in- 
spired the others, and the end of the day saw 
the Boers nearer victory than they were in the 
morning. At Tafelkop, on March 30th, three 
burghers were caught napping by three British 
soldiers, who suddenl}^ appeared before them 
and shouted, '' Hands up ! " While the soldiers 



124 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



were advancing toward them the three burgh- 
ers succeeded in getting their rifles at their cap- 
tors' heads, and turned the tables by making 
prisoners of them. 

There were many such instances of bravery, 
but one that is almost incredible occurred at the 
place called Railway Hill, near the Tugela, on 
February 24th. On that day the Boers did not 
appear to know anything concerning the posi- 
tion of the enemy, and James Marks, a Rusten- 
berg farmer, determined to go out of the laager 
and reconnoitre on his own responsibility. 
Marks was more than sixty-two years old, and 
was somewhat decrepit, a circumstance which 
did not prevent him, however, from taking part 
in almost every one of the Natal battles. The 
old farmer had been absent from his laager less 
than an hour when he saw a small body of Brit- 
ish soldiers at the foot of a kopje. He crept 
cautiously around the kopje, and when he was 
within a hundred yards of the men he shouted, 
'' Hands up ! " The soldiers immediately lifted 
their arms, and, in obedience to the orders 
of Marks, stacked their guns on a rock and ad- 
vanced toward him. Marks placed the men in 
a line, saw that there were twenty-three big, 
able-bodied soldiers, and then marched them 
back into camp, to the great astonishment of his 
generals and fellow-burghers. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE BOERS IN BATTLE 

The battle of Sannaspost, on March 31st, was 
one of the few engagements in the campaign in 
which the forces of the Boers and the British 
were almost numerically equal. There were 
two or three small battles in which the Boers 
had more men engaged than the British, but in 
the majority of instances the Boers were vastly 
outnumbered, both in men and guns. At Elands- 
laagte the Boers had exactly seven hundred and 
fifty burghers pitted against the five or six thou- 
sand British ; Spion Kop was won from three 
thousand British by three hundred and fifty 
Boers ; at the Tugela, Botha with not more than 
twenty-six hundred men fought for more than a 
week against ten times that number of soldiers 
under General BuUer; while the greatest dis- 
parity between the opposing forces was at Paar- 
deberg, where Cronje spent a week in trying to 
lead his four thousand men through the encir- 
cling wall of forty or fifty thousand British 
soldiers. 

125 



126 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Sannaspost was not a decisive battle of the 
war, since no point of great strategical impor- 
tance was at stake, but it was more in the na- 
ture of a demonstration of what the Boers were 
able to do when they were opposed to a force 
of equal strength. It was a test which was 
equally fair to both contestants, and neither of 
them could reasonabl}^ claim to have possessed 
an advantage over the other a day before the 
battle was fought. The British commander, 
Colonel Broadwood, had seventeen hundred 
men in his column, and General De Wet was at 
the head of about two hundred and fifty less 
than that number, but the disparity was equal- 
ized by the Boer general's intimate knowledge 
of the country. Colonel Broadwood was ex- 
perienced in Indian, Egyptian, and South Afri- 
can warfare, and the majority of his soldiers 
were seasoned in many battles. De Wet and 
his men were fresh from Poplar Grove, Abra- 
ham's Kraal, and the fighting around Kimberley, 
and they were not better or worse than the 
average of the Boer burghers. The British 
commander was hampered by a large transport 
train, but he possessed the advantage of more 
heavy guns than his adversary. All in all, the 
two forces were equally matched when they 
reached the battlefield. 

The day before the battle General De Wet 
and his men were in laager several miles east of 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



127 



Brandfort, whither they had fled after the fall 
of Bloeaifontein. His scouts brought to him 
the information that a small British column was 
stationed in the village of Thaba N'Chu, forty 
miles to the east, and he determined to march 
thither and attack it. He gave the order, '' Op- 
zaal ! '* and in less than eight minutes every one 
of his burghers was on his horse, armed, provided 
with two days' rations of biltong, biscuit, coffee, 
and sugar, and ready to proceed. De Wet him- 
self leaped into a light, ramshackle four-wheeler 
and led the advance over the dusty veld. With- 
out attempting to proceed with any semblance 
of military order, the burghers followed in the 
course of their leader, some riding rapidly, 
others walking beside their horses, and a few 
skirmishing far away on the veld for buck. The 
mule teams, dragging the artillery and the am- 
munition wagons, were not permitted by their 
hullabalooing Basuto drivers to lag far behind 
the general, and the dust which was raised by 
this long cavalcade was not unlike the clouds of 
locusts which were frequently mistaken for the 
signs of a trekking commando. Mile after mile 
was rapidly traversed until darkness came on, 
when a halt was made, so that the burghers 
might prepare a meal and the general might 
hear from the scouts who were far in advance of 
the body. After the men and horses had eaten, 
and the moon had risen over the dark peak of 



128 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Thaba N'Chu Mountain, the burghers lighted 
their pipes and sang psalms and hymns until the 
peaceful valley resounded with their voices. 

The long-awaited scouts rode on panting 
horses to the little stone farmhouse where Gen- 
eral De Wet was drinking milk and brought 
information that the British force had evacuated 
Thaba N'Chu late in the afternoon, and was 
moving hurriedly toward Bloemfontein. Again 
the order, '' Opzaal ! " the mule train came into 
motion, and the burghers mounted their horses. 
A chill night air arose, and shivering burghers 
wrapped blankets around their shoulders. The 
humming of hymns and the whistling ceased, 
and there was nothing but the clatter of horses* 
hoofs, the shouts of the Basutos, and the noises 
of the guns and wagons rumbling over the 
stones and gullies to mark the nocturnal pas- 
sage of the army. Lights were shining at farm- 
house windows, and at their gates were women 
and children with bread and bowls of milk and 
prayers for the burghers. Small walls inclos- 
ing family burial plots, where newly dug ground 
told its own story of the war, stood grim in the 
moonlight; native huts, with their inhabitants 
standing like spectres before the doors, ap- 
peared like monstrous ant-heaps — all these were 
passed, but the drooping eyes of the burghers 
saw nothing. 

At midnight another halt was made, horses 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



129 



were unsaddled, and men lay down on the veld 
to sleep. The generals and officers met in 
Krijgsraad, and other scouts arriving, told of 
the enemy's evident intention of spending the 
remainder of the night at an old-time off-saddling 
station known as Sannaspost. The news was 
highly important, and the heads of the generals 
came closer together. Maps were produced, 
pencil marks were made, plans were formed, 
and then the sleeping burghers were aroused. 
The trek was resumed, and shortly afterward 
the column was divided into two parts : the 
one, consisting of nine hundred men under Gen- 
eral Peter De Wet, proceeding by a circuitous 
route to the hills south of Sannaspost ; and the 
other, of five hundred men commanded by Com- 
mandant-General Christian De Wet, moving 
through a maze of kopjes to a position west of 
the trekking station. 

The burghers were not informed of the im- 
minence of a battle, but they required no such 
announcement from their generals. The atmos- 
phere seemed to be surcharged with premoni- 
tions of an engagement, and men rubbed sleep 
out of their eyes and sat erect upon their horses. 
The blacks even ceased to crack their whips so 
sharply, and urged the mules forward in whis- 
pers instead of shrieks. Burghers took their 
rifles from their backs, tested the workings of 
the mechanism, and filled the magazines with 



130 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



cartridges. Artillerymen leaped from their 
horses and led them while they sat on the 
cannon and poured oil into the bearings. 
Young men speculated on the number of pris- 
oners they would take ; old men wrote their 
names on their hats by the light of the moon. 
The lights of Bloemfontein appeared in the dis- 
tance, and gray beards looked longingly at them 
and sighed. But the cavalcade passed on grim- 
ly, silently, and defiantly to the haunts of the 
enemy. 

After four hours of trekking over veld, kopje, 
sluit, and donga, the two columns halted, the 
burghers dismounted, and, weary from the long 
journey and the lack of sleep, lay down on the 
earth beside their horses. Commandants, field 
cornets, and corporals bustling about among the 
burghers, horses, and wagons, gave orders in un- 
dertones ; generals summoned their scouts and 
asked for detailed information concerning the 
whereabouts of the enemy ; patrols were scurry- 
ing hither and thither to secure accurate ideas 
of the topography of the territory in front of 
them ; all who were in authority were busy, 
while the burghers who carried the strength of 
battle in their bodies lay sleeping and resting. 

The first dim rays of the day came over the 
tops of the eastern hills when the burghers were 
aroused and asked to proceed to the positions 
chosen by their leaders. The men under Peter 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE I3I 

De Wet, the younger brother of the comman- 
dant general, were led to an elevation about a 
mile and a half south of Sannaspost, where they 
placed their cannon in position and waited for 
the break of day. Christian De Wet and his five 
hundred burghers advanced noiselessly and oc- 
cupied the dry bed of Koorn Spruit, a stream 
which crossed the main road running from Thaba 
N'Chu to Bloemfontein at right angles about a 
mile from the station, where the British forces 
had begun their bivouac for the night two hours 
before. No signs of the enemy could be seen ; 
there were no pickets, no outposts, and none of 
the usual safeguards of an army, and for some 
time the Boers were led to believe that the 
British force had been allowed to escape un- 
harmed. 

The five hundred burghers under the leader- 
ship of Christian De Wet were completely con- 
cealed in the spruit. The high banks might 
have been held by the forces of the enemy, 
but unless they crept to the edge and looked 
down into the stream they would not have been 
able to discover the presence of the Boers. 
Where the road crossed the stream deep ap- 
proaches had been dug into the banks in 
order to facilitate the passage of conveyances 
— a '' drift " it is called in South Africa— and 
on either side, for a distance of a mile up and 

down the stream, the burghers stood by their 
10 



132 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



horses and waited for the coming of the day. 
The concealment was perfect ; no specially con- 
structed trenches could have served the pur- 
poses of the Boers more advantageously. 

Dawn lighted the flat-topped kopjes that lay 
in a huge semicircle in the distance, and men 
clambered up the sides of the spruit to ascertain 
the position of the camp of the enemy. The 
white smokestack of the Bloemfontein water- 
works appeared against the black background 
of the hills in the east, but it was yet too dark 
to distinguish objects on the ground beneath it. 
A group of burghers in the spruit, absent-mind- 
edly began to sing a deep-toned psalm, but the 
stern order of a commandant quickly ended the 
matutinal chant. A donkey in an ammunition 
wagon brayed vociferously, and a dozen men, 
fearful lest the enemy should hear the noise, 
sprang upon him with clubs and whips and even 
attempted to close his mouth by force of hands. 
It was the fateful moment before the battle, and 
men acted strangely. Some walked nervously 
up and down, others dropped on their knees and 
prayed, a few lighted their pipes, many sat on 
the ground and looked vacantly into space, 
while some of the younger burghers joked and 
laughed. 

At the drift stood the generals, scanning the 
hills and undulations with their glasses. Small 
fires appeared in the east near the tall white 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



133 



stack. '' They are preparing their breakfast," 
some one suggested. '' I see a few tents," an- 
other one reported excitedly. All eyes were 
turned in the direction indicated. Some es- 
timated the intervening distance at a mile, 
others were positive it was not more than a 
thousand yards — it was not light enough to 
distinguish accurately. '' Tell the burghers that 
I will fire the first shot," said General De Wet 
to one of his staff. Immediately the order was 
spread to the men in the spruit. '' I see men 
leading oxen to the wagons ; they are preparing 
to trek," remarked a commandant. '' They are 
coming down this way," announced another, 
slapping his thigh, joyfully. 

A few minutes afterward clouds of dust arose, 
and at intervals the wagons in the van could be 
seen coming down the slope toward the drift. 
The few tents fell and the men in brown uni- 
forms moved hither and thither near the water- 
works building. Wagon after wagon joined in 
the procession ; drivers were shrieking and 
wielding their whips over the heads of the oxen, 
and farther behind were cavalrymen mounting 
their horses. It was daylight then, although 
the sun was still below the horizon, and the 
movements of the enemy could be plainly dis- 
cerned. The ox teams came slowly down the 
road, there seemed to be no limit to their num- 
ber ; and the generals retreated down the drift 



134 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



to the bottom of the spruit, so that their pres- 
ence should not be discovered by the enemy 
and in order to await there the arrival of the 
wagons. 

The shrieking natives drew nearer, the rum- 
bling of the wagons became more distinct, and 
soon the first vehicle descended the drift. A 
few burghers were sent forward to intercept it. 
As soon as it reached the bottom of the spruit, 
the men grasped the bridles of the horses, and 
instantly there were shrieks from the occupants 
of the vehicle. It was filled with women and 
children, all pale with fright on account of the 
unexpected appearance of the Boers. The pas- 
sengers were quickly and gently taken from the 
wagon and sent to places of safety in the spruit, 
while a burgher jumped into the vehicle and 
drove the horses up the other drift and out 
upon the open veld. The operation of substi- 
tuting drivers was done so quickly and quietly 
that none of those approaching the drift from 
the other side noticed anything extraordinary, 
and they proceeded into the spruit. Other 
burghers stood prepared to receive them as 
they descended the drift with their heavily 
laden ammunition and provision wagons, and 
there was little trouble in seizing the British 
drivers and placing the whips into the hands of 
Boers. Wagon after wagon was relieved of its 
drivers and sent up to the other bank without 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



135 



creating a suspicion in the minds of the other 
drivers who were coming down the slope from 
the waterworks. 

After fifty or more wagons had crossed the 
drift, a solitary cavalry officer, with the rank of 
captain, followed one of them, riding leisurely 
along. His coat had a rent in it, and he was 
holding the torn parts together as if he were 
planning the mending of it when he reached 
Bloemfontein. A young Boer sprang before 
him, called '' Hands up ! " and projected the 
barrel of his carbine toward him. The officer 
started out of his reverie, involuntarily reached 
for his sword, but repented almost instantly, and 
obeyed the order. General De Wet approached 
the captain, touched his hat in salute, and said, 
*' Good morning, sir." The officer returned the 
complimentary greeting and offered his sword 
to the Boer. De Wet declined to receive the 
weapon and asked the officer to return to his 
men and ask them to surrender. '' We have a 
large force of men surrounding you," the gen- 
eral explained, '' and you can not escape. In 
order to save many lives, I ask you to surrender 
your men without fighting." The officer re- 
mained silent for a moment, then looked squarely 
into the eyes of the Boer general and said, '' I 
will return to my men and will order them to 
surrender." De Wet nodded his head in as- 
sent, and the captain mounted his horse. " I 



136 THE BOERS IN WAR 

will rely upon your promise," the general added ; 
'' if you break it, I will shoot you." 

General De Wet and several of his com- 
mandants followed the cavalry officer up the 
drift and stood on the bank while the horseman 
galloped slowly toward the troops, which were 
following the wagons down the slope. The gen- 
eral raised his carbine and held it in his arms. 
His eyes were fixed on the officer, and he stood 
as firm as a statue until the cavalryman reached 
his men. There was a momentary pause while 
the captain stood before his troops ; then the 
horses were wheeled about and their hoofs sent 
showers of dust into the air as they carried their 
riders in retreat. General De Wet stepped for- 
ward several paces, raised his carbine to his 
shoulder, aimed steadily for a second, then 
fired. The bullet whistled menacingly over the 
heads of oxen and drivers ; it struck the officer, 
and he fell. 

All along the banks of the spruit, for a mile 
on either side of it, and over on the hills where 
Christian De Wet and his burghers lay, men 
had been waiting patiently and expectantly for 
that signal gun of Peter De Wet. They had 
been watching the enemy toiling down the slope 
under the very muzzles of their guns for almost 
an age it seemed, yet they dared not fire lest 
the plans of the generals should be thwarted. 
Men had lain flat on the ground with their rifles 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 137 

pointing minute after minute at individuals in 
the advancing column, but the words of their 
general, '' I will fire the first shot," restrained 
them. The flight of the bullet which entered 
the body of the cavalry officer marked the end- 
ing of the long period of nervous tension, and 
the burghers were free to use their guns. 

Until the officer advised his men to retreat 
and he himself fell from his horse, the main body 
of the British troops was ignorant of the pres- 
ence of the Boers, but the report of the rifle was 
a summons to battle, and instantly the field was 
filled with myriads of stirring scenes. The lazy 
transport train suddenly became a thing of rapid 
motion ; the huge body of troops was quickly 
broken into many parts ; horses that had been 
idling along the road plunged forward as if pro- 
jected by catapults. Officers with swords flash- 
ing in the sunlight appeared leading their men 
into different positions, cannon were hurriedly 
drawn upon commanding elevations, and Red 
Cross wagons scattered to places of safety. The 
peaceful transport train had suddenly been 
transformed into a formidable engine of war by 
the report of a shot, and the contest for a senti- 
ment and a bit of ground was opened by shriek- 
ing cannon shell and the piercing cry of rifle balls. 

Down at the foot of the slope, where the 
drift crossed the spruit, Boers were dragging 
cannon into position, and in among the wagons, 



138 THE BOERS IN WAR 

which had become congested in the road, burgh- 
ers and soldiers were engaging in hand-to-hand 
encounters. A stocky Briton wrestled with a 
youthful Boer, and in the struggle both fell to 
the ground ; near by a cavalryman was firing 
with his revolver at a Boer armed with a rifle, 
and a hundred paces away a burgher was fight- 
ing with a British officer for the possession of a 
sword. Over from the hills in the south came 
the dull roar of Boer cannon, and then the re- 
port of the exploding shells in the east near the 
waterworks. British cannon opened fire from 
a position near the white smokestack, and scores 
of bursting projectiles fell among the wagons 
at the spruit. Oxen and horses were rent limb 
from limb, wagons tumbled over on their sides, 
boxes of provisions were thrown in all direc- 
tions, and out of the cloud of dust and splinters 
stumbled men with blood-stained faces and lacer- 
ated bodies. Terrified oxen twisted and tugged 
at their yokes, horses broke from their fasten- 
ings in the wagons and dashed hither and 
thither, and weakling donkeys strove in vain to 
escape from vehicles set on fire by the shells. 
Explosion followed explosion, and with every 
one the mass became more entangled. Dead 
horses fell upon living oxen, wheels and axles 
were thrown on the backs of donkeys, and 
plunging mules dragged heavy wagons over 
great piles of debris. 



140 THE BOERS IN WAR 

The cannon on the southern hills became 
more active, and their shells caused the land- 
scape surrounding the waterworks to be filled 
with geysers of dust. Troops which were sta- 
tioned near the white smokestack suddenly 
spurred their horses and dashed northward to 
seek safety behind a long undulation in the 
ground. The artillerymen on the hills followed 
their movements with shells, and the dust foun- 
tains sprang up at the very heels of the troops. 
The cannon at the drift joined in the attack on 
the troops scattered on the slope, and the big 
guns at the waterworks continued to reply vig- 
orously. The men in the spruit were watching 
the artillery duel intently as they sped up and 
down the bottom of the waterless stream search- 
ing for points of vantage. A large number of 
them moved rapidly down the spruit toward 
its confluence with the Modder River to check 
the advance of the troops driven forward by 
the shell fire, and another party rushed east- 
ward to secure positions in the rear of the Brit- 
ish cannon at the waterworks. The banks of 
the stream still concealed them, and they dared 
not fire, lest the enemy should disturb their 
plans. On and on they dashed over rocks and 
chasms until they were within a few hundred 
yards of a part, of the British force. Slowly 
they crept up the sides of the spruit, cautiously 
peered out over the edge of the bank, and then 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



141 



opened fire on the men at the cannon and the 
troops passing down the slope. Little jets of 
dust arose where their bullets struck the ground, 
men fell around the cannon, and cavalrymen 
quickly turned and charged toward the spruit. 
The shells of the cannon at the drift and on the 
southern hills fell thicker and thicker among 
the troops, and the air above them was heavy 
with the light-blue smoke of bursting shrapnel. 
The patter of the Boer rifles at the spruit 
increased in intensity, and the jets of brown 
dust became more numerous. The cavalrymen 
leaped from their horses, and ran ahead to find 
protection behind a line of rocks. The inter- 
mittent, irregular firing of the Boers was punc- 
tuated by the regular, steady reports of British 
volleys. The dust geysers increased among the 
rocks where the British lay, and soon the sol- 
diers turned and ran for their horses. Burghers 
crept from rock to rock in pursuit of them, and 
their bullets urged the fleeing horsemen on. 
The British cannon spoke less frequently, while 
shells and bullets fell so thickly around them 
that bravery in such a situation seemed suicidal, 
and the last artiller3mian fled. Boers ran up and 
turned the loaded guns upon the backs of those 
who had operated them a few moments before. 
Down in the northwestern part of the field 
a large force of troops was dashing over the 
veld toward the banks of the spruit. Officers, 



142 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



waving swords above their heads and shouting 
commands to their subordinates, led the way. 
A few shells exploding in the ranks scattered 
the force temporarily, and caused horses to 
rear and plunge, but the gaps quickly closed 
and the men moved on down the slope. Boers 
rode rapidly down the spruit and out upon the 
veld behind a low range of kopjes which lay in 
front of the British force. Horses were left in 
charge of native servants, and the burghers 
crept forward on hands and knees to the surn- 
mit of the range. They carefully concealed 
themselves behind rocks and bushes and waited 
for the enemy to approach more closely. The 
cavalrymen spread out in skirmishing order as 
they proceeded, and, ignorant of the proximity 
of the Boers, drew their horses into a walk. 
The burghers in the kopje fired a few shots, 
and the troops turned quickly to the left and 
again broke into a gallop. The firing from the 
kopje increased in volume, the cannon from the 
hills again broke forth, the little dust clouds rose 
out of the earth on all sides of the troopers, and 
shrapnel bursting in the air sent its bolts and 
balls of iron and steel into the midst of the 
brown men and earth. Horses and riders fell, 
officers leaped to the ground and shouted en- 
couragement to their soldiers, men sprang be- 
hind rocks and discharged their rifles. Minutes 
of agony passed. Officers gathered their men 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



143 



and attempted to lead them forward, but they 
had not progressed far when the Boers in the 
spruit in front of them swept the ground with the 
bullets of their rifles. Burghers crept around 
the range of kopjes and emptied their carbines 
into the backs of the cavalrymen, cannon poured 
shell upon them from three different directions, 
and these men on the open plain could not see 
even a trace of Boers to fire upon. Men and 
horses continued to fall, the wounded lay moan- 
ing in the grass, while shells and bullets sang 
their song of death more loudly every second 
to those who braved the storm. A tiny white 
cloth was raised, the firing ceased instantly, 
and the brave band threw down its arms to 
the burghers who sprang out from the spruit 
and the rocky kopje. 

In the east, the low hills were dotted with 
men in brown. To the right and left of them, 
a thousand yards apart, were Boer horsemen 
circling around kopjes and seeking positions 
for attacking the already vanquished but stub- 
born enemy. Rifle fire had ceased, and can- 
non sounded only at intervals of a few minutes. 
Women at the doors of the two farmhouses in 
the centre of the battlefield, and a man drawing 
water at a well near by, were not inharmonious 
with the quietude and calmness of the moment, 
but the epoch of peace was of short duration. 
The Boer horsemen stemmed the retreat of the 



144 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



men in brown and compelled them to retrace 
their steps. Another body of burghers made a 
wide detour northeastward from the spruit, and, 
jumping from their horses, crept along under 
the cover of an undulation in the ground for al- 
most a half mile to a point which overlooked the 
route of the British retreat. 

The enemy was slow in coming, and a few 
of the Boers lay down to sleep. Others filled 
their pipes and lighted them, and one abstracted 
a pebble from his shoe. As the cavalrymen drew 
nearer to them the burghers crept forward sev- 
eral paces and sought the protection of rocks or 
piled stones together in the form of miniature 
forts. '^ Shall we fire now?" inquired a beard- 
less Free State youth. '' Wait until they come 
nearer,'' replied an older burgher close by. Si- 
lence was maintained for several minutes, when 
the youth again became uneasy. '' I can hit 
the first one of those Lancers," he begged, as 
he pointed with his carbine to a cavalryman, 
known to the Boers as a '^ Lancer " whether he 
carried a lance or not. The cannon in the south 
urged the cavalrymen forward with a few shells 
delivered a short distance behind them, and then 
the old burgher called to the youth, *' See if you 
can hit him now." 

The boy missed the rider but killed the 
horse, and the British force quickly dismounted 
and sought shelter in a small ravine. The re- 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



145 



ports of volley firing followed, and bullets cut 
the grass beside the burghers and flattened 
themselves against the rocks. Another volley 
and a third in rapid succession, and the burgh- 
ers pressed more closely to the ground. An in- 
terval of a minute, and they glanced over their 
tiny stockades to find a British soldier. '' They 
are coming up the kopje!" shouted a burgher, 
and their rifles swept the hillside with bullets. 
More volleys came from below, and, while the 
leaden tongues sang above and around them, 
the burghers turned and lay on their backs to 
refill the magazines of their rifles. Another in- 
terval, and the attack was renewed. " They 
are running ! " screamed a youth exultingly, 
and burghers rose and fired at the men in brown 
at the foot of the kopje. Marksmen had their 
opportunity then, and long aim was taken be- 
fore a shot was fired. Men knelt on one knee 
and rested an elbow on the other while they 
held their rifles to their shoulders. Reports 
of carbines became less frequent as the enemy 
progressed farther in an opposite direction, but 
increased again Avhen the cavalrymen returned 
for a second attack upon the kopje. '' Lend me 
a handful of cartridges, Jan, " asked one man of 
his neighbour, as they watched the oncoming 
force. '* They must want this kopje," remarked 
another burgher jocularly, as he filled his pipe 
with tobacco and lighted it. 



146 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



The British cannon in the east again became 
active, and the dust raised by their shells was 
blown over the heads of the burghers on the 
kopje. The reports of big guns of the Boers 
reverberated among the hills, while the regular 
volleys of the British soldiers seemed to be 
beating time to the minor notes and irregular 
reports of the Boer rifles. At a distance the 
troops moving over the brown field of battle 
resembled huge ants more than human beings ; 
and the use of smokeless powder, causing the 
panorama to remain perfectly clear and distinct, 
allowed every movement to be closely followed 
by the observer. Cannon poured forth their 
tons of shells, but there was nothing except the 
sound of the explosion to denote where the guns 
were situated. Rifles cut down lines of men, 
but there was no smoke to indicate where they 
were being operated, and, unless the burghers or 
soldiers displayed themselves to the enemy, there 
was nothing to indicate their positions. Shrap- 
nel bursting in the air, the reports of rifles and 
heavy guns, and the little puffs of dust where 
shells and bullets struck the ground were the 
only evidence of the battle's progress. The 
hand-to-hand encounters, the duels with bayo- 
nets and swords, and the clouds of smoke were 
probably heroic and picturesque before the age 
of rapid-fire guns, modern rifles, and smokeless 
ammunition, but here the field of conflict re- 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



147 



sembled a country fox-chase, with an exagger- 
ated number of hunters, more than a battle of 
twenty-five years ago. 

On the summit of the kopje the burghers 
were firing leisurely but accurately. One man 
aimed steadily at a soldier for fully twenty sec- 
onds, then pressed the trigger, lowered his rifle 
and watched for the effect of the shot. Bullets 
were flying high over him and the shrapnel of 
the enemy's guns exploded far behind him. 
There seemed to be no great danger, and he 
fired again. '' I missed that time," he remarked 
to a burgher who lay behind another rock 
several yards distant. His neighbour then fired 
at the same soldier, and both cried simultane- 
ously, '' He is hit ! " The enemy again disap- 
peared in the little ravine, and the burghers 
ceased firing. Shells continued to tear through 
the air, but none exploded in the vicinity of the 
men, and they took advantage of the lull in the 
battle to light their pipes. A swarm of yellow 
locusts passed overhead, and exploding shrapnel 
tore them into myriads of pieces, their wings 
and limbs falling near the burghers. '' I am 
glad I am not a locust," remarked a burgher 
farther to the left of the others, as he dropped 
a handful of torn fragments of the insects. 
Shells and bullets suddenly splashed every- 
where around the burghers, and they crouched 
more closely behind the rocks. The enemj^'s 



148 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



guns had secured an accurate range, and the 
air was filled with the projectiles of iron and 
lead. Exploding shells splintered rocks into 
atoms and sent them tearing through the grass. 
Puffs of dust and dirt were springing up from 
every square yard of ground, and a few men 
rose from their retreats and ran to the rear 
where the Basuto servants were holding their 
horses. More followed several minutes after- 
ward, and when those who remained on the 
summit of the kopje saw that ten times their 
number of soldiers were ascending the hill un- 
der cover of cannon fire they also fled to their 
horses. 

An open plain, half a mile wide, lay between 
the point where the burghers mounted their 
horses and another kopje in the northeast. The 
men lay closely on their horses' backs, plunged 
their spurs into the animals' sides, and dashed 
forward. The cavalrymen who had gained the 
summit of the kopje in the meantime opened 
fire on the fleeing Boers, and their bullets cut 
open the horses' sides and ploughed holes into 
the burghers' clothing. One horse, a magnifi- 
cent gray, who had been leading the others, fell 
dead as he was leaping over a small gully, and 
his rider was thrown headlong to the ground. 
Another horseman turned in his course, assisted 
the horseless rider to his own brown steed, and 
the two were borne rapidly through the storm 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



149 



of bullets toward the kopje. Another horse 
was killed when he had carried his rider almost 
to the goal of safety, and the Boer was compelled 
to traverse the remainder of the distance on 
foot. Apparently all the burghers had escaped 
across the plain, and their field cornet was pre- 
paring to lead them to another position, when a 
solitary horseman, a mere speck of black against 
a background of brown lifeless grass, issued 
from a rocky ravine below the kopje occupied 
by the enemy and plunged into the open space. 
Lee-Metfords cracked and cut open the ground 
around him, but the rider bent forward, and 
seemed to become a part of his horse. Every rod 
of progress appeared to multiply the fountains 
of dust near him ; every leap of his horse seemed 
necessarily his last. On, on, he dashed ; now 
using his stirrups, now beating his horse with 
his hands. It looked as if he were making no 
progress, yet his horse's legs were moving very 
swiftly. '' They will get him," sighed the field 
cornet, looking through his glasses. '' He has a 
chance," replied a burgher. Seconds dragged 
wearily, the firing increased in volume, and the 
dust of the horse's heels mingled with that raised 
by the bullets. The sound of the hoofs beating 
down on the solid earth came louder and louder 
over the veld, the firing slackened, and then 
ceased, and a foaming, panting horse brought 
his burden to where the burghers stood. The 



ISO 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



exhausted rider sank to the ground, and men 
patted the neck and forehead of the quivering 
beast. 

Down in the valley, near the spruit, the for- 
eign military attaches in uniforms quite distinct 
were watching the effect of British artillery on 
the saddle belonging to one of their number. 
'' They will never hit it," volunteered one, as a 
shell exploded ten yards distant from the leathern 
mark. '' They must think it is a crowd of Boers," 
suggested another, when a dozen shells had fallen 
without injuring the saddle. Fifteen, twenty 
tongues of dust arose, but the leather remained 
unmarred by scratch or rent, and the attaches 
became the target of the heavy guns. '' I am 
hit," groaned Lieutenant Nix, of the Nether- 
lands-Indian army, and his companions caught 
him in their arms. Blood gushed from a wound 
in the shoulder, but the soldier's spirit did not 
desert him. '' Here, Demange ! " he called to 
the French attache ; ^' hold my head, and you, 
Thompson and Allum, see if you can not bind 
this shoulder." The Norwegian and the Hol- 
lander bound the wound as well as they were 
able to do the work. '' Reichman ! " the injured 
man whispered, '' I am going to die in a few 
minutes, and I wish you would write a letter to 
my wife." The American attache hastily pro- 
cured paper and pencil, and, while shells and 
shrapnel were bursting over and around them, 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



151 



the wounded man dictated a letter to his wife in 
Holland. Blood flowed copiously from the 
wound, and stained the grass upon which he 
lay. He was pale as the clouds above him, and 
the pain was agonizing, but the dying man's 
letter was filled with nothing but expressions of 
love and tenderness. 

In the southeastern part of the field a large 
party of cavalrymen were speeding in the direc- 
tion of Thaba N'Chu. On two sides of them, a 
thousand yards behind, small groups of Boer 
horsemen were giving chase. At a distance, 
the riders appeared like ants slowly climbing 
the hillside. Now and then a Boer rider sud- 
denly stopped his horse, leaped to the ground, 
and fired at the fleeing cavalrymen. A second 
afterward he was on his horse again, bending to 
the chase. Shot followed shot, but the distance 
between the forces grew greater, and one by 
one the burghers turned their animals' heads 
and slowly retraced their steps. A startled 
buck bounded over the veld ; two rifles were 
turned upon it, and its flight was ended. 

The sound of firing had ceased, and the bat- 
tle was concluded. Wagons with Red Cross 
flags fluttering from the tall staffs above them 
issued from the mountains and rumbled through 
the valleys. Burghers dashed over the field in 
search of the wounded and dying. Men who a 
few moments before were straining every nerve 



152 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



to kill their fellow-beings then became equally 
energetic to preserve lives. Wounded soldiers 
and burghers were lifted out of the grass and 
carried tenderly to the ambulance wagons. The 
dead were placed side by side, and the same 
cloth covered the bodies of Boer and Briton. 
Men with spades upturned the earth and stood 
grimly by while a man in black prayed over the 
bodies of those who had died for their country. 

Boer officers, with pencil and paper in their 
hands, sped over the battlefield from a group of 
prisoners to a line of passing wagons, and made 
calculations concerning the result of the day's 
battle. Three Boers killed and nine wounded 
was one side of the account. On the credit 
sheet were marked four hundred and eight 
British soldiers, seven cannon, one hundred 
and fifty wagons, five hundred and fifty rifles, 
two thousand horses and cattle, and vast stores 
of ammunition and provisions captured during 
the day. 

In among the northeastern hills, where a 
farmer's daub and wattle cottage stood, were 
the prisoners of war chatting and joking with 
their captors. The officers walked slowly back 
and forth, never raising their eyes from the 
ground. Dejection was written on their faces. 
Near them were the captured wagons with 
groups of noisy soldiers climbing over them 
in search of their luggage. On the ground 



THE BOERS IN BATTLE 



153 



Others were playing cards and matching coins. 
Young Boers walked among them and engaged 
them in conversation. Near the farmhouse stood 
a tall Cape Colony Boer talking with his former 
neighbour who was a prisoner. Several Amer- 
icans among the captured disputed the merits 
of the war with a Yankee burgher who had 
readily distinguished his countrymen among 
the throng. Some one began to whistle a 
popular tune, others joined, and soon almost 
every one was participating. An officer gave 
the order for the prisoners to fall in line, and 
shortly afterward the men in brown tramped 
forward, while the burghers stepped aside and 
lined the path. A soldier began to sing another 
popular song, British and Boer caught the re- 
frain, and the noise of tramping feet was 
drowned by the melody of the united voices of 
friend and foe singing : 

** It's the soldiers of the Queen, my lads, 
Who've been, my lads — who're seen, my lads, 

Will proudly point to every one 

Of England's soldiers of the Queen." 



CHAPTER VII 

THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 

The names and deeds of the men who led 
thirty thousand of their fellow-peasants against 
almost a quarter of a million of the trained troops 
of the greatest empire in the world, and hus- 
banded their men and resources so that they 
were enabled to continue the unequal struggle 
for the greater part of a year, will live forever 
in the history of the Dark Continent. When 
racial hatred and the bitternesses of the war have 
been forgotten and South Africa has emerged 
from its long period of bloodshed and disaster, 
then all Afrikanders will revere the memory of 
the valiant deeds of Cronje, Joubert, Botha, 
Meyer, De Wet, and the others, who fought so 
valiantly in a cause which they considered just 
and holy. Such noble examples of heroism as 
Cronje's stand at Paardeberg, Botha's defence 
of the Tugela and the region east of Pretoria, 
De Wet's warfare in the Free State, and Meyer's 
fighting in the Transvaal, will shine in African 
history as long as the Southern Cross illumes 
154 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



I5S 



the path of a civilized people in that region. 
When future generations search the pages of 
history for deeds of valour they will turn to the 
records of the Boer-British war of 1 899-1900, 
and find that the farmers of South Africa had 
leaders who were not less valorous than those 
of the untrained followers of Cromwell, the 
peace-loving mountaineers of Switzerland, or, 
the patriotic countrymen of Washington. 

The leaders of the Boer forces were not gen- 
erals in the popular sense of the word. Almost 
without exception they were men who had no 
technical knowledge of warfare ; men who were 
utterly without military training of any kind, 
and who would have been unable to pass an 
examination for the rank of corporal in a Euro- 
pean army. Among the entire list of generals 
who fought in the armies of the two republics 
there were not more than three who had ever 
read military works ; and Cronje was the only 
one who had ever studied the theory and prac- 
tice of modern warfare and made an attempt to 
apply the principles of it to his army. Every one 
of the Boer generals was a farmer, who before the 
war paid more attention to his crops and cattle 
than he did to evolving ideas for application in 
a campaign ; and the majority of them, in fact, 
never dreamed that they would be called upon 
to be military leaders until they were nominated 
for the positions a snort time before hostilities 



156 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



were commenced. Joubert, Cronje, Ferreira, 
and Meyer were about the only men in the two 
republics who were certain that they would be 




General Snyman and Commandant Botha. 
(Captured at Rustenberg in June.) 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



IS7 



called upon to lead their countrymen, for all 
had had experience in former wars ; but men 
like Botha, De Wet, De la Rey, and Snyman, 
who occupied responsible positions afterward, 
had no such assurance, and naturally gave little 
or no attention to the study of military matters. 
The men who became Boer generals gained 
their military knowledge in the wilds and on, 
the veld of South Africa, where they were able 
to develop their natural genius in the hunting of 
lions and the tracking of the game. The Boer 
principle of hunting was precisely the same as 
their method of warfare, and consequently the 
man who in times of peace was a successful 
leader of shooting expeditions was none the less 
adept afterward as the leader of commandos. 

When the Volksraad of the Transvaal deter- 
mined to send an ultimatum to Great Britain, it 
was with the knowledge that such an act would 
provoke war, and consequently preparations for 
hostilities were immediately made. One of the 
first acts was the appointment of five assistant 
commandant generals— Piet Cronje, Schalk Bur- 
ger, Lucas Meyer, Daniel Erasmus, and Jan 
Kock — all of whom held high positions in the 
Government and were respected by the Boer 
people. After hostilities commenced, and it be- 
came necessary to have more generals, six other 
names were added to the list of assistants of 
Commandant-General Joubert ; those chosen 



158 THE BOERS IN WAR 

being Sard Du Toit, Hendrik Schoeman, John 
de la Rey, Hendrik Snyman, and Herman R. 
Lemmer. The selections which were so pro- 
miscuously made were proved by time to be 
wise, for almost without exception the men 
developed into extraordinarily capable generals. 
In the early part of the campaign many costly 
mistakes and errors of judgment were made 
by some of the newly appointed generals, but 
such misfortunes were only to be expected from 
men who suddenly found themselves face to 
face with the tactics of some of the best trained 
generals in the world. Later, when the cam- 
paign had been in progress for several months, 
and the farmers had had opportunities of learn- 
ing the tactics of their opponents, they made no 
move unless they were reasonably certain of the 
result. 

One of the prime reasons for the great suc- 
cess which attended the Boer army before the 
strength of the enemy^s forces became over- 
whelming was the fact that the generals were 
allowed to operate in parts of the country with 
which they were thoroughly acquainted. Gen- 
eral Cronje operated along the western frontiers 
of the republics where he knew the geog-raphi- 
cal features of the land as well as he did those 
of his own farm. General Meyer had spent the 
greater part of his life in the neighbourhood 
of the Biggarsberg and northern Natal, and 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



159 



there was hardly a rod of that territory with 
which he was unfamiliar. General Botha was 
born near the Tugela, and in his boyhood days 
pursued the buck where afterward he made 
such a brave resistance against the forces of 
General Duller. General Christian De Wet was 
a native of Dewetsdorp, and there was not a 
sluit or donga in all the territory where he 
fought so valiantly that he had not traversed 
scores of times before the war began. General 
de la Rey had spent the greater part of his life 
in Griqualand West, Cape Colony, and when he 
was leading his men around Kimberley and the 
southwestern part of the Free State, he was in 
familiar territory. General Snyman, who be- 
sieged Mafeking, was a resident of the Marico 
district, and consequently was acquainted with 
the formation of the country in the western part 
of the Transvaal. In the majority of cases the 
generals did not need the services of an intel- 
ligence department, except to determine the 
whereabouts of the enemy, for no scouts or 
patrols could furnish a better account of the na- 
ture of the region in which they were fighting 
than that which existed in the minds of the 
leaders. Under these conditions there was not 
the slightest chance of any of the generals fall- 
ing into a trap laid by the British, but there 
were always opportunities for leading the ene- 
my into ambush. 



i6o 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



The Boer generals also had the advantage 
of having excellent maps of the country in 
which they were fighting, and by means of 
these they were enabled to explain proposed 
movements to their commandants and field cor- 
nets who were not familiar with the topography 




Commandos in laager at Mafeking. 

of the land. These maps were made two years 
before the war by a corps of experts employed 
by the Transvaal Government, and on them 
was a representation of every foot of ground in 
the Transvaal, Free State, Natal, and Cape Col- 
ony. A small elevation near Durban and a 
spruit near Cape Town were marked as plainly 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR i6i 

as a kopje near Pretoria, while the British forts 
at Durban and Cape Town were as accurately 
pictured as the roads that led to them. The 
Boers had a map of the environs of Ladysmith 
which was a hundred times better than that fur- 
nished by the British War Ofifice, yet Ladysmith 
was the Natal base of the British army for many 
years. 

The greater part of the credit for the Boers' 
preparedness must be given to the late Com- 
mandant-General Piet J. Joubert, who was the 
head of the Transvaal war department for many 
years. General Joubert, or '' Old Piet," as he 
was called by the Boers, to distinguish him 
from the many other Jouberts in the country, 
had been undoubtedly a great military leader in 
his younger days, but he was almost seventy 
years old when he was called upon to lead his 
people against the army of Great Britain, and 
at that age very few men are capable of great 
mental or physical exertion. There was no 
greater patriot in the Transvaal than he, and no 
one who desired the absolute independence of 
his country more sincerely than the old gen- 
eral, yet his heart was not in the fighting. Like 
Kruger, he was a man of peace, and to his dy- 
ing day he believed that the war might have 
been easily avoided. Unlike Kruger, he clung 
to the idea that the contest, having been forced 
upon them, should be ended as speedily as pos- 



l62 THE BOERS IN WAR 

sible, and without regard to the loss of national 
interests. Joubert valued the lives of the burgh- 
ers more highly than a clause in a treaty, and 
rather than see his countrymen slain in battle, 
he was willing to make concessions to those 
who were harassing his Government. 

Joubert was one of the few public men in the 
Transvaal who firmly believed that the dif- 
ferences between the two countries would be 
amicably adjusted, and he constantly opposed 
the measures for arming the country which 
were brought before him. The large armament 
was secured by him, it is true, but the Volks- 
raads compelled him to purchase the arms and 
ammunition. If Joubert had been a man who 
loved war he would have laid in three times as 
great a quantity of war material as there was in 
the country when the war was begun, but he 
was distinctly a man who loved peace. He 
constantly allowed his sentiments to overrule 
his judgment of what was good for his country, 
and the result of that line of action was that at 
the beginning of hostilities there were more 
Boer guns in Europe and on the ocean than 
there were in the Transvaal. 

General Joubert was a grand old Boer in 
many respects, and no better, more righteous, 
and more upright man ever lived. He worked 
long and faithfully for his people, and undoubt- 
edly strove to do that which he believed to 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



163 



be the best for his country ; but he was inca- 
pable of performing the duties of his office as a 
younger, more energetic, and a more warlike 




General Piet J. Joubert. 



man would have attended to them. Joubert 
was in his dotage, and none of his people were 
aware of it until the crucial moment of the war 
12 



164 THE BOERS IN WAR 

was passed. When he led the Boers at Ama- 
juba and Laing's Nek, in 1881, he was in the 
prime of his life — energetic, resourceful, and 
undaunted by any reverses. In 1899, when he 
followed the commandos into Natal, he was ab- 
solutely the reverse — slow, wavering, and too 
timid to move from his tent. He constantly re- 
mained many miles in the rear of the advance 
column, and only once went into the danger zone 
when he took a small commando south of the 
Tugela. Then, instead of leading his victorious 
burghers against the forces of the enemy, he 
retreated precipitately at the first sign of dan- 
ger, and established himself at Modderspruit, a 
day's journey from the foremost commandos, 
where he remained with almost ten thousand of 
his men for three months. 

Joubert attempted to wage war without the 
shedding of blood, and he failed. When Gen- 
eral Meyer reported that about thirty Boers 
had been killed and injured in the fight at Dun- 
dee, the commandant general censured him 
harshly for making such a great sacrifice of 
blood, and forbade his following the fleeing 
enemy, as such a course would entail still greater 
casualties. When Sir George White and his 
forces had been imprisoned in Ladysmith and 
there was almost a clear path to Durban, Jou- 
bert held back and would not risk the lives of a 
few hundred burghers, even when it was pointed 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



165 



out to him that the men themselves were eager 
to assume the responsibility. He made only 
one effort to capture Ladysmith, but the slight 
loss of life so appalled him that he would never 
sanction another attack, although the town could 
easily have been taken on the following day had 
an attempt been made. Notwithstanding he had 
a large army around the besieged town, he did 
not dig a yard of intrenchment in all the time 
he was at Modderspruit, nor would he hearken 
to any plans of capturing the starving garrison 
by means of progressive trenches. While Gen- 
erals Botha, Meyer, Erasmus, and Burger with 
three thousand men were holding the enemy at 
the Tugela, Joubert with three times that num- 
ber of men to guard impotent Ladysmith de- 
clined to send any ammunition for their big 
guns, voted to retreat, and finally fled northward 
to Colenso, deserting the fighting men, destroy- 
ing the bridges and railways as he progressed, 
and even leaving his own tents and equipment 
behind. 

There were extenuating circumstances in 
connection with Joubert's failure in the cam- 
paign — his age, an illness, and an accident while 
he was in laager — and it is but charitable to 
grant that these were fundamentally responsible 
for his shortcomings, but it is undoubted that 
he was primarily responsible for the failure of 
the Natal campaign. The army which he com- 



l66 THE BOERS IN WAR 

manded in Natal, although only twelve or thir- 
teen thousand men in strength, was the equal in 
fighting ability of seventy-five thousand British 
troops, and the only thing it lacked was a man 
who would fight with them and lead them after 
a fleeing enemy. If the commandant general 
had pursued the British forces after all their 
defeats and had drawn the burghers out of their 
laagers by the force of his own example, the 
major part of the history of the Natal campaign 
would have been made near the Indian Ocean 
instead of on the banks of the Tugela. The 
majority of the Boers in Natal needed a com- 
mander in chief who would say to them ''Come," 
but Joubert only said " Go/* 

The death of General Joubert in Pretoria, 
on March 26th, was sincerely regretted by all 
South Africans, for he undoubtedly was one of 
the most distinguished men in the country. 
During his long public career he made many 
friends, who held him in high honour for his 
sterling qualities, his integrity, and his devotion 
to his country's cause. He made mistakes, and 
there are few men who are invulnerable to them, 
but he died while striving to do that which he 
regarded the best for his country and its cause. 
If dying for one's country is patriotism, then 
Joubert's death was sweet. 

When war clouds were gathering and the 
storm was about to burst over the Transvaal, 



l68 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Piet Cronje sat on the stoep of his farmhouse in 
Potchefstroom, evolving in his mind a system of 
tactics which he would follow when the conflict 
began. He was certain that he would be chosen 
to lead his people, for he had led them in nu- 
merous native wars, in the conflict in 1881, and 
later when Jameson made his ill-starred entry 
into the Transvaal. Cronje was a man who 
loved to be amid the quietude of his farm, but 
he was in the cities often enough to realize that 
war was the only probable solution of the dif- 
ferences between the Uitlanders and the Boers, 
and he made preparations for the conflict. He 
studied foreign military methods and their appli- 
cation to the Boer mode of warfare ; he evolved 
new ideas and improved old ones ; he planned 
battles and the evolutions necessary to win 
them ; he had a natural taste for things military. 
Before all the world heard the blast of the 
war trumpet, Cronje deserted the peaceful 
stoep and was attacking the enemy on the veld 
at Mafeking. A victory there, and he was 
riding at the head of his men toward Kimber- 
ley. A skirmish here, a hard-fought battle there, 
and he had the diamond city in a state of siege.. 
Victories urged him on, and he led the way 
southward. A Magersfontein to his wreath, a 
Belmont and a Graspan, and it seemed as if he 
were more than nominally the South African 
Napoleon. A reverse, and Cronje was no longer 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



169 



the dashing, energetic leader of the month be- 
fore. Doggedly and determinedly he retraced 
his steps, but advanced cautiously now and then 
to punish the enemy for its overconfidence. 
Beaten back to Kimberley by the overpowering 
force of the enemy, he endured defeat after de- 
feat, until finally he was compelled to abandon 
the siege in order to escape the attacks of a 
second army sent against him. The enemy's 
web had been spun around him, but he fought 
bravely for freedom from entanglement. Gen- 
eral French was on one side of him, Lord Rob- 
erts on another. Lord Kitchener on a third, and 
against the experience and troops of all these 
men was pitted the genius of the Potchefstroom 
farmer. A fight with Roberts's horse on Thurs- 
day, February 15th ; a march of ten miles and 
a victorious rear-guard action with Lord Kitch- 
ener on Friday; a repulse of the forces under 
Lords Roberts and Kitchener on Saturday ; and 
on Sunday morning the discovery that he and 
his four thousand men and women in the river 
bed at Paardeberg were surrounded by forty 
thousand troops of the enemy — that was a four 
days' record which caused the lion of Potchef- 
stroom merely to show his fangs to the enemy. 
When General Cronje entered the river bed 
on Saturday he felt certain that he could fight 
his way out on the following day. Scores of his 
burghers appealed to him to trek eastward that 



1^0 THE BOERS IN WAR 

night ; and Commandant-General Ferreira, of 
the Free State, asked him to trek northeast, in 
order that their two Boer forces might effect a 
junction ; but Cronje was determined to remain 
in the positions he then occupied until he could 
carry all his transport wagons safely away. In 
the evening Commandants De Beer and Gro- 
bler uged the general to escape, and explained 
to him that he would certainly be surrounded 
the following day, but Cronje steadfastly de- 
clined, and expressed his ability to fight a path 
through any force of the enemy. Even late that 
night, while the British troops were welding 
the chain which was to bind him hard and fast 
in the river bed, many of Cronje's men begged 
the general to abandon the position, and when 
they saw him so determined they deserted him 
and escaped to the eastward. 

Cronje might have accepted the advice of 
his officers and men if he had not believed that 
he could readily make his way to the east, where 
the presence of any of Lord Roberts's troops 
was not suspected. Not until the following 
forenoon, w^hen he saw the British advance 
guard marching over the hills on the south side 
of the river, did he realize that the enem}^ had 
surrounded him, and that he had erred when 
he determined to hold the position. The grave 
mistake could not be rectified, and Cronje was 
in no mood for penitence. He told his men that 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



171 



he expected re-enforcements from the east, and 
counselled them to remain cool and fire with 
discretion until assistance came to them. Later 
in the day the enemy attacked the camp from 
all sides, but the little army repulsed the on- 
slaught, and killed and wounded more than a 
thousand British soldiers. When the Sabbath 
sun descended and the four thousand Boers sang 
their psalms and hymns of thanksgiving, there 
was probably only one man who believed that 
the burghers would ever be able to escape from 
the forces which surrounded them, and that man 
was General Cronje. He realized the gravity 
of the situation, but he was as calm as if he had 
been victorious in a battle. He talked cheerily 
with his men, saying, '' Let the English come 
on ! " and when they heard their old commander 
speak in such a confident manner, they deter- 
mined to fight until he himself announced a vic- 
tor}^ or a defeat. 

On Monday morning it seemed as if the very 
blades of grass for miles around the Boer laager 
were belching shot and shell over the dongas 
and trenches where the burghers had sought 
shelter. Lyddite shells and shrapnel burst over 
and around them ; the bullets of rifles and ma- 
chine guns swept close to their heads, and a few 
yards distant from them were the heav}^ explo- 
sions of ammunition wagons set on fire by the 
enemy's shells. Burgher horses and cattle fell 



172 THE BOERS IN WAR 

under the storm of lead and iron, and the 
mingled life-blood of man and beast flowed in 
rivulets to join the waters of the river. The 
wounded lay groaning in the trenches, the dead 
unburied outside, and the cannonading was so 
terrific that no one was able to leave cover 
sufficiently long to give a drink of water to a 
wounded companion. There was no medicine 
in the camp, all the physicians were held in 
Jacobsdal by the enemy, and the condition of 
the dead and dying was such that Cronje was 
compelled to ask for an armistice. The reply 
from the British commander was, '' Fight or 
surrender," and Cronje chose to continue the 
fight. The bombardment of the laager was re- 
sumed with increased vigour, and there was not 
a second's respite from shells and bullets until 
after night descended, when the burghers were 
enabled to emerge from their trenches and holes 
to exercise their limbs and to secure food. 

The Boers' cannon became defective on 
Tuesday morning, and thereafter they could 
reply to the continued bombardment with only 
their rifles. Hope rose in their breasts dur- 
ing the day, when a heliograph message was 
received from Commandant Froneman. '' I am 
here with General De Wet and Cronje," the 
message read ; ^^ have good cheer. I am wait- 
ing for re-enforcements. Tell the burghers to 
find courage in Psalm xxvii." The fact that 




^ 

^ 



be 



U 



o 



s 



u 



o 



o 



174 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



re-enforcements were near, even though the 
enemy was between, imbued the burghers with 
renewed faith in their ability to defeat the Brit- 
ish, and when a concerted attack was made 
against the laager in the afternoon a gallant 
resistance followed. 

On Wednesday morning the British batteries 
again poured their shells on the miserable and 
exhausted Boers. Shortly before midday there 
was a lull in the storm, and the beleaguered 
burghers could hear the reports of the battle 
between the relieving force and the British 
troops. The sounds of the fight grew fainter 
and fainter, then subsided altogether; the bom- 
bardment of the laager was renewed, and the 
burghers realized that Froneman had been beaten 
back by the enemy. The disappointment was 
so great that one hundred and fifty Boers bade 
farewell to their general and laid down their 
arms to the enemy. The following day was 
merely the repetition of the routine of former 
days, with the exception that the condition of 
the men and the laager was hourly becoming 
more miserable. The clamouring of the wound- 
ed for relief was in itself a misery to those who 
were compelled to hear it, but to allow such ap- 
peals to go unanswered was heartrending. To 
have the dead unburied seemed cruel enough, 
but the presence of the corpses before one's 
eyes day after day was torture. To know that 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 175 

the enemy was in ten times greater strength 
was disheartening, but to realize that there was 
no relief at hand was enough to dim the bright- 
est courage. Yet Cronje was undaunted. 

Friday and Saturday brought nothing but a 
message from Froneman, again encouraging 
them to resist until re-enforcements could be 
brought from Bloemfontein. On Saturday even- 
ing Jan Theron, of Krugersdorp, succeeded in 
breaking through the British lines with de- 
spatches from General De Wet and Comman- 
dants Cronje and Froneman, urging General 
Cronje to fight a way through the lines while 
they would engage the enemy from their side. 
Cronje and his officers decided to make an at- 
tempt to escape, and on Sunday morning the 
burghers commenced the construction of a chain 
bridge over the Modder to facilitate the cross- 
ing of the swollen river. Fortunately for the 
Boers, the British batteries fired only one shot 
into the camp that day, and the burghers were 
able to complete the bridge before night by 
means of the ropes and chains from their ox 
wagons. On Monday morning the British guns 
made a target of the bridge, and shelled it so un- 
remittingly that no one was able to approach it, 
much less to make an attempt to cross the river 
by means of it. The bombardment seemed to 
grow in intensity as the day progressed, and 
when two shells fell into a group of nine burgh- 



176 THE BOERS IN WAR 

ers and left nothing but an arm and a leg to be 
found, the Krijgsraad decided to hoist a white 
flag on Tuesday morning. General Cronje and 
Commandant Schutte were the only offlcers who 
voted against surrendering. They begged the 
other officers to reconsider their decision, and 
to make an attempt to fight a way out, but the 
confidence of two men was too weak to change 
the opinions of the others. 

In a position covering less than a square mile 
of territor}^, hemmed in on all sides by an army 
almost as great as that which defeated Napoleon 
at Waterloo, surrounded by a chain of fire from 
carbines, rapid-fire guns, and heavy cannon, the 
target of thousands of the vaporous lyddite 
shells, his trenches enfiladed by a continuous 
shower of lead, his men half dead from lack of 
food, and stiff from the effect of their narrow 
quarters in the trenches. General Cronje chose 
to fight and to risk complete disaster by leading 
his four thousand men against the forty thou- 
sand of the enemy. 

The will of the majority prevailed, and on 
February 27th, the anniversary of Majuba Hill, 
after ten days of fighting, the white flag was 
hoisted above the dilapidated laager. The 
bodies of ninety-seven burghers lay upon the 
scene of the disaster, and two hundred and forty- 
five wounded men were left behind when Gen- 
eral Cronje and his thirty-six hundred and 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



177 



seventy-nine burghers limped out of the river 
bed and surrendered to Field-Marshal Lord 
Roberts. 

In many respects General Cronje was the 
Boers' most brilliant leader, but he was respon- 
sible for many serious and costly reverses. At 
Magersfontein he defeated the enemy fairly, and 
might have reaped the fruits of his victory if 
he had followed up the advantage there gained. 
Instead, he allowed his army to remain inactive 
for two months, while the British established a 
camp and base at the river. General French's 
march to Kimberley might readily have been 
prevented if Cronje had placed a few thousand 
of his men on the low range of kopjes command- 
ing French's route, but during the two days 
which were so fateful to him and his army 
General Cronje never stirred from his laager. 
At Magersfontein Cronje allowed thirty-six 
cannon deserted by the British to remain on 
several kopjes all of one night and until ten 
o'clock the next morning, when they were taken 
away by the enemy. When he was asked why 
he did not send his men to secure the guns, 
Cronje replied, ^* God has been so good to us 
that I did not have the heart to send my over- 
worked men to fetch them." 

Cronje was absolutely fearless, and in all the 
battles in which he took part he was always in 
the most exposed positions. He rarely used a 



178 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



rifle, as one of his eyes was defective, but the 
short, stoop-shouldered, gray-bearded man with 
the long- riding whip was always in the thick of 
the fight, encouraging his men, and pointing out 
the positions for attack. He was a fatalist when 
in battle, if not in times of peace, and it is told 
of him that at Modder River he was warned by 
one of the burghers to seek a less exposed posi- 
tion. '' If God has ordained me to be shot to- 
day,'' the grim old warrior replied, '' I shall be 
shot whether I sit here or in a well." Cronje 
was one of the strictest leaders in the Boer 
army, and that feature made him unpopular 
with the men, who constantly applied to him 
for leaves of absence to return to their homes. 
They fought for him in the trenches at Paarde- 
berg, not because they loved him, but because 
they respected him as an able leader. He did 
not have the affection of his burghers like Botha, 
Meyer, De Wet, or De la Rey, but he held his 
men together by force of his superior military 
attainments, a sort of overawing authority which 
they could not disregard. 

Personally Cronje was not an extraordinary 
character. He was urbane in manner and a 
pleasant conversationalist. Like the majority of 
the Boers he was deeply religious and tried to 
introduce the precepts of his religion into his 
daily life. Although he was sixty-five years old 
when the war began, he had the energy and 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



179 



spirit of a much younger man, and the terrors 
and anxieties of the ten days' siege at Paarde- 
berg left but little marks on the face which has 
been described as Christlike. His patriotism 
was unbounded, and he held the independence 
of his country above everything. '' Independ- 
ence with peace, if possible, but independence 
at all costs," he was wont to say, and no one 
fought harder than he to attain that end. 

When the Vryheid commandos rode over 
the western border of their district and invaded 
Natal, Louis Botha, the successor of Comman- 
dant-General Joubert, was one of the many 
Volksraad members who went forth to war in 
the ranks of the common burghers. After the 
battle of Dundee, in which he distinguished 
himself by several daring deeds, Botha became 
assistant general to his lifelong friend and 
neighbour, General Lucas Meyer. Several 
weeks later when General Meyer fell ill, he gave 
his command to his compatriot, General Botha; 
and a short time afterward, when Commandant- 
General Joubert was incapacitated by illness, 
Botha was appointed to assume the responsibil- 
ities of the commander in chief. When Jou- 
bert was on his death-bed he requested that 
Botha should be his successor, and in that man- 
ner Louis Botha, burgher, became Louis Botha, 
commandant general, in less than six months. 

It was a remarkable chain of fortuitous cir- 
13 



l8o THE BOERS IN WAR 

cumstances which led to Botha's rapid advance- 
ment, but it was not entirely due to extrane- 
ous causes, for he was deserving of every step 
of his promotion. There is a man for every 
crisis, but rarely in history is found a record 
of a soldier who rose from the ranks to com- 
mander in chief of an army in one campaign. 
It was Meyer's misfortune that he became ill 
at a grave period of the war, but it was the 
country's good fortune to have a Botha ready 
at hand to fight a Colenso and a Spion Kop. 
When the burgher army along the Tugela was 
hard pressed by the enemy, and both its old- 
time leaders, Joubert and Meyer, lay ill at the 
same time, it was little less than providential 
that a Botha should step out of the ranks and 
lead the men with as much discretion and valour 
as could have been expected from the expe- 
rienced generals whose work he undertook to 
accomplish. It was a modern representation of 
the ploughman deserting his farm in order to 
lead in the salvation of Rome. 

Thirty-five years before he was called upon 
to be commandant general of the army of his 
nation, Louis Botha was born near the spot 
where he was chosen for that office and on the 
soil of the empire against whose forces he was 
now pitting his strength and ability. In his 
youth he was wont to listen to the narratives of 
the battles in which his father and grandfather 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR igl 

fought side by side against the hordes of natives 
who periodically dyed the waters of the Tu- 
gela crimson with the blood of massacred men 
and women. In early manhood, Botha fought 
against the Zulus and assisted Lucas Meyer in 
establishing the New Republic which afterward 
became his permanent home. Popularity, ability, 
and honesty brought him into the councils of 
the nation as a member of the First Volksraad, 
where he wielded great influence by reason of 
his conscientious devotion to duty and his deep 
interest in the welfare of his country. When 
public affairs did not require his presence in 
Pretoria, Botha was with his family on his farm 
in Vryheid, and there he found the only happi- 
ness which he considered worth havinof. The 
joys of a pastoral existence combined with the 
devotion and love of his family were the key- 
stone of Botha's happiness, and no man had a 
finer realization of his ambitions in that respect 
than he. Botha was a warrior, no doubt, but 
primarily he was a man who loved the peaceful- 
ness of a farm, the pleasures of a happy home 
life, and the laughter of his four children more 
than the tramp of victorious troops or the roar 
of cannon. 

There are a few men who have a certain 
magnetic power which attracts and holds the 
admiration of others. Louis Botha was a man 
of this class. Strangers who saw him for the 



1 82 THE BOERS IN WAR 

first time loved him. There was an indescrib- 
able something about him which caused men 
looking at him for the first time to pledge their 
friendship enduringly. The lustre in his light 
blue eyes seemed to mesmerize men, to draw 
them, willing or unwilling, to him. It was not 
the quality which gained friends for Kruger, nor 
that which made Joubert popular, but rather a 
mysterious, involuntary influence which he 
exerted over everybody with whom he came in 
contact. A man less handsome, of less com- 
manding appearance than Botha might have 
possessed such a power and have been con- 
sidered less extraordinary than he, but it was 
not wholly his personal appearance — for he was 
the handsomest man in the Boer army — which 
aroused the admiration of men. His voice, his 
eyes, his facial expression, and his manner — all 
combined to strengthen the man's power over 
others. Whether it was personal magnetism or 
a mysterious charm which he possessed it was 
the mark of a great man. 

The early part of Botha's career as a general 
was fraught with many difficulties, the majority 
of which could be traced to his lack of years. 
The Boer mind could not grasp the fact that 
a man of thirty-five years could be a military 
leader, and for a long time they treated the young 
commander with a certain amount of contempt. 
The old takhaars laughed at him when he asked 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



183 



them to perform any duties, and called him a 
boy. They were unable to understand for a long 
time why they should act upon the advice or 




Commandant-General Louis Botha. 



1 84 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



orders of a man many years younger than they, 
and it was not until Botha had fought Colenso 
and Spion Kop that the old burghers began to 
realize that ability was not always monopolized 
by men with hoary beards. Before they had 
these manifestations of Botha's military genius 
hundreds of the burghers absolutely refused 
to obey his commands, and even went to the 
length of protesting to the Government against 
his continued tenure of the important post. 

The younger Boers, however, were quicker 
to discern the worth of the man, and almost 
without exception gave him their united sup- 
port. There was one instance when a young 
Boer questioned Botha's authority, but the 
burgher's mind was quickly disabused, and there- 
after he was one of the commandant general's 
stanchest supporters. It was at the battle of 
Pont Drift, when General Botha was busily en- 
gaged in directing the movements of his men 
and had little time to argue fine points of au- 
thority. The general asked two young Boers to 
carry ammunition to the top of a kopje which was 
being hard shelled by the enemy. One of the 
Boers was willing immediately to obey the gen- 
eral, but the other man refused to undertake the 
hazardous journey. The general spoke kindly 
to the Boer, and acknowledged that he would 
be risking his life by ascending the hill, but in- 
sisted that he should go. The Boer finally de- 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR jg^ 

clared he would not go, and added that Botha 
was too young to give orders to men. The com- 
mandant-general did not lose his temper, but it 
did not require much time for him to decide 
that a rebuke of some sort was necessary ; so he 
knocked the man to the ground with his fist. 
It was a good, solid blow, and the young Boer 
did not move for a minute ; but when he rose he 
had fully decided that he would gladly carry 
the ammunition to the top of the kopje. 

After General Botha had demonstrated that 
he was a capable military leader he became the 
idol of all the Boers. His popularity was sec- 
ond only to that of President Kruger, and the 
hero worshippers arranged for all sorts of hon- 
ours to be accorded to him after the war. He 
was to be made President, first of all things; 
then his birthday anniversary was to be made 
the occasion of a national holiday ; statues were 
to be erected for him, and nothing was to be left 
undone in order that his services to his country 
might be given the appreciation they deserved. 
The stoical Boers were never known to worship 
a man so idolatrously as they did in this case, 
and it was all the more noteworthy on account 
of the adverse criticism which had been be- 
stowed upon him several months before. 

General Botha's reputation as a gallant and 
efficient leader was gained during the campaign 
in Natal, but it was not until after the relief of 



1 86 THE BOERS IN WAR 

Ladysmith that his real hard work began. After 
the advance of Lord Roberts's large army from 
Bloemfontein was begun myriads of new duties 
devolved upon the commandant general, and 
thereafter he displayed a skill and ingenuity in 
dealing with grave situations which were mar- 
vellous when it was taken into consideration that 
he was opposing a victorious army with a mere 
handful of disappointed and gloomy burghers. 
The situation would have been grave enough if 
he had had a trained and disciplined army under 
his command, but, in addition to forming plans 
for opposing the enemy's advance. General 
Botha was compelled to gather together the 
burghers with whom he desired to make the 
resistance. His work would have been com- 
paratively easy if he could have remained at the 
spot where his presence was most necessary, 
but it was absolutely impossible for him to lead 
the defensive movements in the Free State with- 
out men, and in order to secure them he was 
obliged to leave that important post and go to 
the Biggarsberg, where many burghers were 
idle. 

Telegraph wires stretched from the Free 
State to Natal, but a command sent by such a 
route never caused a burgher to move an inch 
nearer to the Free State front, and consequently 
the commandant general was compelled to go 
personally to the Biggarsberg in search of vol- 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



187 



unteers to assist the burghers south of Kroon- 
stad. When General Botha arrived in Natal in 
the first days of May he asked the Standerton 
commando to return with him to the Free State. 
They flatly refused to go unless they were first 
allowed to spend a week at their homes ; but 
Botha finally, after much begging, cajoling, and 
threatening, induced the burghers to start im- 
mediately. The commandant general saw the 
men board a train, and then sped joyously north- 
ward toward Pretoria and the Free State in a 
special train. When he reached Pretoria Botha 
learned that the Standerton commando had fol- 
lowed him as far as Standerton station, and then 
dispersed to their homes. His dismay was great, 
but he was not discouraged, and several hours 
later he was at Standerton, riding from farm to 
farm to gather the men. This work delayed 
his arrival in the Free State two days, but he 
secured the entire commando and went with it 
to the front, where it served him valiantly. 

The masterly retreat of the Boer forces 
northward along the railway and across the 
Vaal River, and the many skirmishes and battles 
with which Botha harassed the enemy*s advance, 
were mere incidents in the commandant gen- 
eral's work of those trying days. There were 
innumerable instances not unlike that in connec- 
tion with the Standerton command, and in addi- 
tion there was the planning to prevent the large 



igg THE BOERS IN WAR 

commandos in the western part of the Trans- 
vaal and Meyer's large force in the southeastern 
part from being cut off from his own body of 
burghers. It was a period of grave moment 
and responsibilities, but Botha was the man for 
the occasion. Although the British succeeded 
in entering Pretoria, the capital of the country, 
the Boers lost little in prestige or men, and 
Botha and his burghers were as confident of the 
final success of their cause as they were when 
they crossed the Natal border seven months 
before. Even after all the successive defeats of 
his army, Commandant-General Botha continued 
to say, '' We will fight, fight, until not a single 
British soldier remains on South African soil." 
A general who can express such a firm faith in 
his cause when he sees nothing but disaster sur- 
rounding him is great even if he is not victo- 
rious. 

The military godfather of Commandant- 
General Botha was General Lucas Meyer, one 
of the best leaders in the Boer army. The work 
of the two men was cast in almost the same lines 
during the greater part of the campaign, and 
many of the commandant general's burdens 
were shared by his old-time tutor and neighbour 
in the Vryheid district. Botha seldom under- 
took a project unless he first consulted with 
Meyer, and the two constantly worked hand in 
hand. Their friends frequently referred to them 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR igg 

as Damon and Pythias, and the parallel was 
most appropriate, for they were as nearly the 
counterparts of these old Grecian heroes as 




General and Mrs. Lucas Meyer. 



modern limitations would allow. Botha at- 
tained the post of commandant general through 
the illness of Meyer, who would undoubtedly 



190 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



have been Joubert's successor if he had not 
fallen sick at an important period of the cam- 
paign ; but the fact that the pupil became the 
superior officer of the instructor never strained 
the amicable relations of the two men. 

General Meyer received his fundamental 
military education from the famous Zulu chief- 
tain, Dinizulu, in 1884, when he and eight hun- 
dred fellow Boers assisted the natives in a war 
against the chieftains of other tribes. In a bat- 
tle at Labombo Mountain, June 6th of that year, 
Meyer and Dinizulu vanquished the enemy, and 
as payment for their services the Boers each 
received a large farm in the district now known 
as Vryheid. A government named the New 
Republic was organized by the farmers, and 
Meyer was elected President, a post which he 
held for four years, when the Transvaal annexed 
the republic to its own territory. In the war 
of 1 88 1 Meyer took part in several battles, and 
at Ingogo he was struck on the head by a piece 
of shell which caused him to be unconscious for 
forty-two days. In the later days of the re- 
public General Meyer held various military and 
civil positions in the Vryheid district, where his 
large farm, '' Anhouwen," is located, and was 
the chairman of the Volksraad which decided 
to send the ultimatum to Great Britain. 

When war was actually declared General 
Meyer and his commandos were on the Trans- 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



191 



vaal border near his farm, and they opened hos- 
tilities by making a bold dash into Natal and at- 
tacking the British army encamped at Dundee. 
The battle was carefully planned by Meyer, and 
it would undoubtedly have ended with the cap- 
ture of the entire British force, if General Eras- 
mus, who was to co-operate with him, had per- 
formed the part assigned to him. Although 
many British soldiers were killed and captured 
and great stores of ammunition and equipment 
taken, the forces under General Yule were al- 
lowed to escape to the south. General Meyer 
followed the fleeing enemy as rapidly as the 
muddy roads could be traversed and engaged 
them at Modderspruit. There he gained a de- 
cisive victory and compelled the survivors to 
enter Ladysmith, where they were immediately 
besieged. Meyer was extremely ill before the 
battle began, but he insisted upon directing his 
men and continued to do so until the field was 
won, when he fell from his horse and was seri- 
ously sick for a month. He returned to the 
front against the advice of his physicians on 
December 24th, and took part in the fighting at 
Pont Drift, Boshrand, and in the thirteen days' 
battle around Pieters Hill. In the battle of 
Pont Drift a bullet struck the general's field 
glasses, flattened itself, and dropped into one 
of his coat pockets, to be made into a souvenir 
brooch for Mrs. Meyer, who frequently visited 



192 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



him when no important movements were in 
progress. 

When General Joubert and his Krijgsraad 
determined to retreat from the Tugela and al- 
low Ladysmith to be relieved, General Meyer 
was one of those who protested against such a 
course ; but when the decision was made Meyer 
returned to the Tugela and remained there with 
his friend Louis Botha during the long and 
heroic fight against General BuUer's column. 
Meyer and Botha were among the last persons 
to leave the positions which they had defended 
so long, and on their journey northward the 
two generals decided to return and renew the 
fight as soon as they could reach Modderspruit 
and secure food for their men and horses. 
When they arrived at Modderspruit they found 
that Joubert and his entire army had fled north- 
ward and had carried with them every ounce of 
food. It was a bitter disappointment to the two 
generals, but there was nothing to be done ex- 
cept to travel in the direction of the scent of 
food, and the journey led the dejected, disap- 
pointed, starved generals and burghers north 
over the Biggarsberg Mountains, where provi- 
sions could be secured. 

During the long period in March and April, 
when neither Boers nor British seemed to be 
doing anything, General Meyer arranged a mag- 
nificent series of intrenchments in the Biggars- 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



193 



berg Mountains, which made an advance of the 
enemy practically impossible. Foreign military 
experts pronounced the defences impregnable, 
and expressed the greatest astonishment when 
they learned that Meyer formulated the plans 
of the works without ever having read a book 
on the subject, or without having had the 
benefit of any instruction. The intrenchments 
began at a point a few miles east of the British 
outposts, and continued for miles and miles 
northeast and northwest to the very apex of 
the Biggarsberg. Spruits and rivers were con- 
nected by means of trenches, so that a large 
Boer force could travel many miles without 
being observed by the enemy, and the series of 
intrenchments was fashioned in such a manner 
that the Boers could retreat to the highest point 
of the mountains and remain meanwhile in per- 
fect concealment. Near the top of the moun- 
tain long schanzes or walls were built to offer a 
place of security for the burghers, while on the 
top were miles of walls to attract and inveigle 
the enemy to approach the lower wall more 
closely. The plan was grandly conceived, but 
the British forces evaded the Biggarsberg in 
their advance movements, and the intrench- 
ments were never bathed in human blood. 

When the Boers in the Free State were un- 
able to stem the advance of the British, General 
Meyer was compelled to retreat northward to 



ig^ THE BOERS IN WAR 

insure his own safety, but he did it so slowly 
and systematically that he lost only a few men, 
and was able now and then to make bold dashes 
at the enemy's flying columns with remarkable 
success. The retreat northward through the 
Transvaal was fraught with many harassments, 
but General Meyer joined forces with General 
Botha east of Pretoria, and thereafter the teacher 
and pupil again fought hand in hand for a com- 
mon cause. 

The Free State was not as prolific of gen- 
erals as the Transvaal, but in Christian De Wet 
she had one of the ablest as well as one of the 
most fearless leaders in the republican ranks. 
Before he was enlisted to fight for his country 
De Wet was a farmer who had a penchant for 
dealing in potatoes, and his only military train- 
ing was acquired when he was one of the sixty 
Boer volunteers who ascended the slopes of 
Majuba Hill in 1881. There was nothing of the 
military in his appearance ; in fact, Christian De 
Wet, Commandant General of the Orange Free 
State in 1900, was not a whit unlike Christian 
De Wet, butcher of Barberton in 1889, and men 
who knew him in the gold-rush days of that 
mining town declared that he was more martial 
in appearance then as a licensed slayer of oxen 
than later as a licensed slayer of men. He even 
prided himself on his unmilitary exterior, and 
it was not a small source of satisfaction to him 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



195 



to say that his fighting regalia was the same 
suit of clothing which he wore on his farm on 




Commandant-General Christian De Wet. 



the day that he left it to fight as a soldier in his 
country's army. 

Before the war De Wet's chief claim to noto- 
14 



196 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



riety lay iri the fact that he had attempted to 
purchase the entire supply of potatoes in South 
Africa for the purpose of effecting a '' corner " 
in that product in the Johannesburg market. 
Unfortunately for himself, he held his potatoes 
until the new crop was harvested, and became 
a bankrupt in consequence. Later he appeared 
as a potato farmer near Kroonstad ; and still 
later, at Nicholson's Nek, in Natal, he captured 
twelve hundred British prisoners, and inciden- 
tally a large stock of British potatoes, which 
seemed to please him almost as greatly as the 
human captives. Although the vegetable strain 
was frequently predominant in De Wet's con- 
stitution, he was not overzealous to return to 
his former pastoral pursuits, and continued to 
lead his commandos over the hills of the eastern 
Free State long after that territory was chris- 
tened the Orange River Colony. 

General De Wet was at the head of a num- 
ber of Free State commandos which crossed 
into Natal at the outbreak of the war, and took 
part in several of the battles around Ladysmith, 
but his services were soon required in the vicin- 
ity of Kimberley, and there he made a heroic 
effort to effect a junction with the besieged 
Cronje. It was not until after the British occu- 
pation of Bloemfontein that De Wet really be- 
gan his brilliant career as a daring commander, 
but thereafter he was continually harassing the 




a. 






^ 

^ 






198 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



enemy. He led with three big battles in one 
week, with a total result of a thousand prisoners 
of war, seven cannon, and almost a million 
dollars' worth of supplies. At Sannaspost, on 
March 31st, he swept down upon Colonel Broad- 
wood's column and captured one fourth of the 
men and all their vast supplies almost before 
the British officers were aware of the presence 
of the enemy. The echoes of that battle had 
hardly subsided when he fell upon another 
British column at Moestershoek with results 
almost as great as at Sannaspost, and two days 
later he was besieging a third British column 
in his own native heath of Wepener. Column 
after column was sent to drive him away, but 
he clung fast to his prey for more than two 
weeks, when he eluded the great force bent 
on his capture, and moved northward to take 
an active part in opposing the advance of Lord 
Roberts. He led his small force of burgh- 
ers as far as the northern border of the Free 
State while the enemy advanced, and then 
turned eastward, carrying President Steyn and 
the capital of the republic with him to places of 
safety. Whenever there was an opportunity he 
sent small detachments to attack the British 
lines of communications, and harassed the ene- 
my continually. In almost all his operations 
the commandant general was assisted by his 
brother, General Peter De Wet, who was no 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 



199 



less daring in his operations. Christian De 
Wet was responsible for more British losses 
than any of the other generals. In his opera- 
tions in Natal and the Free State he captured 
more than three thousand prisoners, thousands 
of cattle and horses, and stores and ammunition 




General Peter De Wet. 

valued at more than three million dollars. The 
number of British soldiers killed and wounded 
in battles with De Wet is a matter for conjecture, 
but it is not limited by the one thousand mark. 
General John De la Rey, who operated in 
the Free State with considerable success, was 



200 THE BOERS IN WAR 

one of the most enthusiastic leaders in the army, 
and his confidence in the fighting ability of the 
Boers was not less than his faith in the eventual 
success of their arms. De la Rey was born on 
British soil, but he had a supreme contempt for 
the British soldier, and frequently asserted that 
one burgher was able to defeat ten soldiers at 
any time or place. He was the only one of the 
generals who was unable to speak the English 
language, but he understood it well enough to 
capture a spy whom he overheard in a Free 
State hotel. De la Rey was a Transvaal gen- 
eral, and when the retreat from Bloemfontein 
was made he harassed the enemy greatly, but 
was finally compelled to cross the Vaal into his 
own country, where he continued to fight with 
Commandant-General Botha. 

Among the other Boer generals who took 
active part in the campaign in different parts of 
the republics were J. Du P. De Beer, a Raad 
member who defended the northern border of 
the Transvaal ; Sarel Du Toit, whose defence at 
Fourteen Streams was admirably conducted; 
Snyman, the old Marico farmer who besieged 
Mafeking; Hendrik Schoeman, who operated 
in Cape Colony ; Jan Kock, killed at the Elands- 
laagte battle early in the campaign ; and the 
three generals, Lemmer, Grobler, and Olivier, 
whose greatest successes were Stormberg and 
their retreat from Cape Colony. 



THE GENERALS OF THE WAR 20I 

The Boer generals and officers, almost with- 
out exception, were admirable men personally. 
Some of them were rough, hardy men who 
would have felt ill at ease in a drawing-room, 
but they had much of the milk of human kind- 
ness in them, and there was none who loved to 
see or participate in bloodshed. There may 
have been instances when white or Red Cross 
flags were fired upon, but when such breaches 
of the rules of war occurred they were not in- 
tentional. The foreigners who accompanied 
the various Boer armies — the correspondents, 
military attaches,?iX\di the volunteers — will testify 
that the officers, from Commandant-General 
Botha down to the corporals, were always 
zealous in their endeavours to conduct an hon- 
ourable warfare, and that the farmer generals 
were as gentlemanly as they were valourous. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE WAR PRESIDENTS 

The real leader of the Boers of the two re- 
publics was Paul Kruger, their man of peace. 
The momentous questions that agitated the 
country and his long political supremacy caused 
him many and bitter enemies, but the war healed 
all animosities, and he was the one man in the 
republics who had the respect, love, and admira- 
tion of all the burghers. Wherever one might 
be, whether in the houses on the veld or in the 
trenches of the battlefield, every one spoke of 
'' Oom Paul '' in a manner which indicated that 
he was the Boer of all Boers. There was not 
a burgher who would not declare that Kruger 
was a greater man than he was before he de- 
spatched his famous ultimatum to Great Brit- 
ain. His old-time friends supported him even 
more faithfully than before hostilities began, and 
his political enemies of other days became the 
might of his right arm. Those who opposed 
him most bitterly and unremittingly when the 
campaign was one between the progressive and 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



203 



conservative parties were most eager to listen 
to his counsels and to stand by his side when 
their country's hour of darkness had arrived. 
Not a word of censure of him was heard any- 
where ; on the contrary, every one praised him 
for opposing Great Britain so firmly, and prayed 
that his life might be spared until their dream 
of absolute independence was realized. 

Sir Charles Dilke once related a conversa- 
tion he had with Bismarck concerning Paul 
Kruger. " Cavour was much smarter, more 
clever, more diplomatically gifted than I," said 
the prince, '' but there is a much stronger, much 
abler man than Cavour or I, and that man is 
President Kruger. He has no gigantic army 
behind him, no great empire to support him. 
He stands alone with a small peasant people and 
is a match for us by mere force of genius. I 
spoke to him — he drove me into a corner." 
Kruger's great ability, as delineated by Bis- 
marck, was indisputable, and a man with less of 
it might have been President and have avoided 
the war, but only at a loss to national interests. 
The President had one aim and one goal — his 
country's independence — and all the force of 
his genius was directed toward the attainment 
of that end. He tried to secure it b}^ peace- 
ful means, but he had planted the seed of 
the desire for it so deeply in the minds of his 
countrymen that when it sprouted they over- 



204 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



whelmed him and he was driven into war 
against his will. 

Kruger would not have displaced diplomacy 
with the sword, but his burghers felt that peace- 
ful methods of securing their independence 
were of no avail, and he was powerless to resist 
their pressure. He did not lead the Boers into 
actual war ; they insisted that only war would 
give them the relief they sought, and he fol- 
lowed under their leadership. When the meet- 
ings of the Volksraad immediately preceding 
the war were held, it was not Paul Kruger who 
called for war ; it was the representatives of the 
burghers who had been instructed by their con- 
stituents to insist upon it. When the President 
saw that his people had determined to have a 
war, he was leader enough to form plans which 
might bring the conflict to a successful con- 
clusion, and he chose a moment for making a 
declaration that he considered opportune. The 
ultimatum was decided upon eleven days before 
it was actually despatched, but it was delayed 
eight days on account of the unprepared condi- 
tion of the Free State. Kruger realized the 
importance of striking the first blow at an 
enemy which was not prepared to resist it, and 
the Free State's tardiness at such a grave crisis 
was decidedly unpleasant to him. Then, when 
the Free State was ready to mobilize, the Presi- 
dent secured another delay of three days in or- 




Paul Kruger. 



2o6 THE BOERS IN WAR 

der that diplomacy might have one more chance. 
His genius had not enabled him to realize the 
dream of his life without a recourse to war, and 
when the ultimatum was delivered into the 
hands of the British the old man wept. 

When the multitudinous executive duties 
which he attended to in peaceful times were 
suddenly ended by the declaration of hostilities, 
the President busied himself with matters per- 
taining to the conduct of the war. He worked 
as hard as any man in the country, despite his 
age, and on many occasions he displayed the 
energy of a man many years younger. The war 
caused his daily routine of work and rest to be 
changed completely. He continued to rise at 
four o'clock in the morning, a habit which he 
contracted in early youth and had followed ever 
since. After his morning devotions he listened 
to the reading of the despatches from the gen- 
erals at the front, and dictated replies in the 
shape of suggestions, censure, or praise. He 
slept for an hour after breakfast, and then went 
to the Government buildings, arriving there 
punctually every morning as the clock on the 
dome struck nine. He remained in consultation 
with the other members of the Executive Coun- 
cil, and the few other Government officials who 
remained in the city, for an hour or more. 
After luncheon he again worked over de- 
spatches, received burghers on leave of absence 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



207 



from the front and foreigners who sympathized 
with his people's cause. He never allowed him- 
self to be idle, and, in fact, there was no oppor- 
tunity for him to be unemployed, inasmuch as 
almost all the leading Government officials were 
at the front, while many of their duties remained 
behind to be attended to by some one. Kruger 
himself supervised the work of all the depart- 
ments whose heads were absent, and the labour 
was great. His capacity for hard work was 
never better demonstrated than during the war, 
when he bore the weight of his own duties and 
those of other Government officials, as well as 
the strain of guiding the Boer emissaries in 
foreign countries. Added to all these grave 
responsibilities, when the reverses of the army 
grew more serious, was the great worry and the 
constant dread of new disasters, which beset a 
man who occupies such a position. 

No man had greater influence over the Boers 
than Kruger, and his counsel was always sought 
and his advice generally followed. When the 
first commandos went to the front it was con- 
sidered almost absolutely necessary for them to 
stop at Pretoria and see " Oom Paul" before 
going to battle, and it seemed to affect the old 
man strangely when he addressed them and 
bade them God-speed in the accomplishment of 
their task. It was in the midst of one of these 
addresses that the President, while standing in 



2o8 THE BOERS IN WAR 

the centre of a group of burghers, broke down 
and wept as he referred to the many men who 
would lose their lives in the war. When the 
Boer army was having its greatest successes, 
Kruger constantly sent messages to his burgh- 
ers, thanking them for their good work, and 
exhorting them not to neglect to thank their 
God for his favours. One of the most char- 
acteristic messages of this nature was sent to 
the generals, commandants, officers, and burgh- 
ers on January 8th, and it was a most unique 
deliverance to come from the President of a 
republic. The message was composed by him- 
self, and, as literally translated, read : 

'' For your own and the war officers' informa- 
tion 1 wish to state that, through the blessing of 
our Lord, our great cause has at present been 
carried to such a point that, by dint of great 
energy we may expect to bring it to a success- 
ful issue on our behalf. 

'' In order that such an end may be attained, 
it is, however, strictly necessary that all energy 
be used, that all burghers able to do active 
service go forward to the battlefield, and that 
those who are on furlough claim no undue 
extension thereof, but return as soon as possi- 
ble, every one to the place where his war offi- 
cers may be stationed. 

'' Brothers ! I pray you to act herein with all 
possible promptitude and zeal, and to keep your 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



209 



eyes fixed on that Providence who has miracu- 
lously led our people through the whole of 
South Africa. Read Psalm xxxiii, from verse 7 
to the end. 

*' The enemy have fixed their faith in Psalm 
Ixxxiii, where it is said that this people shall not 
exist and its name must be annihilated ; but the 
Lord says, ' It shall exist.' Read also Psalm 
Ixxxix, the thirteenth and fourteenth verses, 
where the Lord saith that the children of 
Christ, if they depart from his words, shall be 
chastised with bitter reverses, but his favour 
and goodness shall have no end and shall never 
fail. What he has said remains strong and firm. 
For, see, the Lord purifieth his children, even 
unto gold proven by fire. 

*' I need not draw your attention to all the 
destructiveness of the enemy's works, for you 
know it, and I again point to the attack of the 
devil on Christ and his Church. This has been 
the attack from the beginning, and God will not 
countenance the destruction of his Church. You 
know that our cause is a just one, and there can 
not be any doubt of it, for it is as the contents 
of just that psalm that they commenced with us 
in their wickedness, and I am still searching the 
entire Bible, and find no other way which can 
be followed than that which has been pursued 
by us, and we must continue to fight in the 
name of the Lord. 



2IO THE BOERS IN WAR , 

" Please notify all the officers of war and the 
entire public of your district of the contents of 
this telegram, and imbue them with an earnest 
zeal for the cause." 

When the President learned that Comman- 
dant-General Joubert had determined to retreat 
from the neighbourhood of Ladysmith he sent 
a long telegram to his old friend, imploring him 
not to take such a step, and entreating him to 
retain his forces at the Tugela. The aged gen- 
eral led his forces northward to Glencoe, not- 
withstanding the President's protest, and a day 
afterward Kruger arrived on the scene. The 
President was warrior enough to know that a 
great mistake had been made, and he did not 
hesitate to show his displeasure. He and Jou- 
bert had had many disagreements in their long 
experiences with one another, but those who 
were present in the general's tent at that Glen- 
coe interview said that they had never seen the 
President so angry. When he had finished giv- 
ing his opinion of the general's action the Presi- 
dent shook Joubert's hand, and thereafter they 
discussed matters calmly and as if there had 
been no quarrel. To the other men who were 
partly responsible for the retreat he showed his 
resentment of their actions by declining to shake 
hands with them, a method of manifesting dis- 
approbation that is most cutting to the Boers. 

" If I were five years younger, or if my eye- 



THE \YAR PRESIDENTS 21 1 

sight were better," he growled at the recalci- 
trants, '' I would take a rifle and bandolier and 
show you what we old Boers were accustomed 
to do. We had courage ; you seem to have 
none." 

After the President had encouraged the offi- 
cers, and had secured their promises to continue 
the resistance against the enemy, he wandered 
about in the laagers, shaking hands with and in- 
fusing new spirit into the burghers who had 
flocked together to see their revered leader. 
When several thousand of the Boers had gath- 
ered around him, and were trying to have a 
word with him and grasp his hand, the Presi- 
dent bared his head and asked his friends to 
join him in prayer. Instantly every head was 
bared, and Kruger's voice spread out over the 
vast concourse in a grand appeal to the God 
of battles to grant his blessing to the burgher 
army. The gray-haired old man was conspicu- 
ous in a small circle which was formed by the 
burghers withdrawing several paces when he 
began the prayer. On all sides there spread 
out a mass of black-garbed, battle-begrimed 
Boers with e3'es turned to the ground. Here 
and there a white tent raised its head above 
the assemblage ; at other points men stood on 
wagons and cannon. Farther on burghers dis- 
mounted from their horses and joined the crowd. 
In the distance were Talana Hill, where the first 
15 



212 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



battle of the campaign was fought ; the lofty 
Drakensberg, where more than fifty years be- 
fore the early Boer voortrekkers had their first 
glimpse of fair Natal; while to the south were 
the hills of Ladysmith of sombre history. There, 
in the midst of sanguinary battlefields, and 




General Joubert's camp at Glencoe. 

among several thousand men who sought the 
blood of the enemy, Kruger, the man of peace, 
implored Almighty God to give strength to his 
burghers. It was a magnificent spectacle. 

He had been at Glencoe only a short time 
when the news reached him that the burghers 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 213 

in the Free State had lost their courage and 
were retreating rapidly toward Bloemfontein. 
He shortened his visit, hastened to the Free 
State, and met the fleeing Boers at Poplar Grove. 
He exhorted them to make a stand against the 
enemy, and, by his magnetic power over them, 
succeeded in inducing the majority to remain 
and oppose the British advance. His own fear- 
lessness encouraged them, and when they saw 
their old leader standing in the midst of shell 
fire as unmoved as if he were watching a holi- 
day parade they had not the heart to run. 
While he was watching the battle a shell fell 
within a short distance of where he stood, and 
all his companions fled from the spot. He 
walked slowly away, and when the men re- 
turned to him he chided them and made a 
witty remark concerning the shell, naming it 
one of ''the Queen's pills." While the battle 
continued Kruger followed one of the comman- 
dos and urged the men to fight. At one stage 
of the battle the commando which he was fol- 
lowing was in imminent danger of being cut 
off and captured by the British forces, but the 
burghers fought valiantly before their President, 
and finally conveyed him to a place of safety, 
although the path was shell- and bullet-swept. 

He returned to Bloemfontein, and, in con- 
junction with President Steyn, addressed an ap- 
peal to Lord Salisbury to stop the war. They 



214 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



asked that the republics should be allowed to 
retain their independence, and firmly believed 
that the appeal would end hostilities, inasmuch 
as the honours of war were then about equally 
divided between the two armies. To those who 
watched the proceedings it seemed ridiculous 
to ask for a cessation of hostilities at that time; 
but Kruger sincerely believed that his appeal 
would not be in vain, and he was greatly sur- 
prised, but not discomfited, when a distinct re- 
fusal was received in reply. 

Several weeks after the memorable trip to 
the Free State President Kruger made another 
journey to the sister republic, and met Presi- 
dent Steyn and all the Boer generals at the 
famous Krijgsraad at Kroonstad. No one who 
heard the President when he addressed the 
burghers who gathered there to see him will 
ever forget the intensity of Kruger's patriot- 
ism. Kroonstad, then the temporary capital of 
the Free State, was not provided with any large 
public hall where a meeting might be held, so a 
small butcher's stand in the market square was 
chosen for the site of the conference. After 
President Steyn, Commandant-General Joubert, 
and several other leading Boers had addressed 
the large crowd of burghers standing in the 
rain outside the tradesman's pavilion, Kruger 
stepped on one of the long tables and exhorted 
them to renewed efforts, to fight for freedom, 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



215 



and not to be disconsolate because Bloemfon- 
tein had fallen into the hands of the enemy. 
When the President concluded his address the 
burghers raised a great cheer, and then returned 
to their laagers with their minds filled with a 
new spirit and with a renewed determination to 
oppose the enemy — a determination which dis- 
played itself later in the fighting at Sannaspost, 
Moestershoek, and Wepener. Kruger found 
the burghers in the Free State in the depths of 
despair ; when he departed they were as confi- 
dent of ultimate victory as they were on the 
day war was begun. The old man had the 
faculty of leading men as it is rarely found. 
In times of peace he prevailed by force of argu- 
ment as much as by reason of personal magnet- 
ism. In war time he led men by mere words 
sent over telegraph wires, by his presence at 
the front, and by his display of manly dignity, 
firm resolution, and devotion to his country. 
He was like the kings and rulers of ancient 
times who led their cohorts into battle and 
wielded the sword when there was a neces- 
sity for such action. 

During the war President Kruger suffered 
many disappointments, endured many griefs, 
and withstood many trials and tribulations, but 
none affected him so deeply as the death of his 
intimate friend Commandant-General Joubert. 
Kruger and Joubert were the two leading men 



2i6 THE BGERS IN WAR 

of the country for many years. They were 
among those who assisted in the settlement of 
the Transvaal and in the many wars which were 
coincident with it. They had indelibly inscribed 
their names on the scroll of the South African 
history of a half century, and in doing so they 
had become as intimate as two brothers. For 
more than twoscore years Kruger had been 
considered the leader of the Boers in peaceful 
times, while Joubert was their warrior. The 
ambition of both was the independence of their 
country, and, while they differed radically on 
the methods by which it was to be attained, 
neither surpassed the other in strenuous efforts 
to secure it without a recourse to war. The 
death of Joubert was as saddening to Kruger, 
consequently, as the demise of his most dearly 
beloved brother, and in the funeral oration 
which the President delivered over the bier of 
the general he expressed that sense of sorrow 
most aptly. This oration, spoken upon an occa- 
sion when the country was mourning the death 
of a revered leader, and struggling under the 
weight of recent defeats, was one of the most 
remarkable utterances ever made by a man at 
the head of a nation. 

*' Brothers, sisters, burghers, and friends," he 
began, '' only a few words can I say to you to- 
day, for the spirit is willing but the flesh is 
weak. We have lost our brother, our friend, 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



217 



our commandant general. I have lost my right 
hand, not of yesterday, but my right hand since 
we were boys together, many long years ago. 
"To-night I alone seem to have been spared of 
the old people of our cherished land, of the men 
who lived and struggled together for our coun- 
try. He has gone to heaven, while fighting for 
liberty, which God has told us to defend ; for 
the freedom for which he and I have struggled 
together for so many years, and so often, to 
maintain. Brothers, what shall I say to you in 
this our greatest day of sorrow, in this hour of 
national gloom? The struggle we are engaged 
in is for the principles of justice and righteous- 
ness, which our Lord has taught us is the broad 
road to heaven and blessedness. It is our sacred 
duty to keep on that path, if we desire a happy 
ending. Our dear dead brother has gone on 
that road to his eternal life. What can I say of 
his personality ? It is only a few short weeks 
ago that I saw him at the fighting front, humbly 
and modestly taking his share of the privations 
and the rough work of the campaign like the 
poorest burgher, a true general, a true Christian, 
an example to his people. And he spoke to me 
then, and even more recently; and, let me tell 
you, that the da3^s are dark. We are suffering 
reverses on account of wickedness rampant in 
our land. No success will come, no blessings 
be given to our great cause, unless you remove 



2i8 the: BOERS IN WAk 

the bad elements from among us ; and then you 
may look forward to attaining the crowning 
point, the reward of righteousness and noble 
demeanour. We have in our distinguished de- 
parted brother an example. Chosen, as he was, 
by the nation, time after time to his honourable 
position, he had their trust to such an extent 
that everything was left in his hands ; and he 
did his work well. He died, as he lived, in the 
path of duty and honour. Let the world rage 
around us, let the enemy decry us — I say, follow 
his example. The Lord will stand by you 
against the ruthless hand of the foe, and at the 
moment when he deems it right for interference 
peace will come once more. Why is the sym- 
pathy of the whole world with us in this strug- 
gle for freedom ? Why are strangers pouring 
in from Europe to assist us in the maintenance 
of our beloved flag, to aid us in the just defence 
of our independence? Is it not God's hand ? I 
feel it in my heart. I declare to you again, the 
end of our struggle will be satisfactory. Our 
small nation exists by the aid of the Almighty, 
and will continue to do so. The prophets say 
the closed books shall be opened, the dead shall 
arise, darkness be turned into light ; nothing 
shall be concealed. Every one will face God's 
judgment throne. You will listen to his voice, 
and your eyes shall be open for the truth of 
everything. Think of the costly lives given by 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



219 



US for our cause, and you will rally to the fight 
for justice to the end. Brothers, to the deeply 
bereaved widow of our commandant general, to 
his family, to you all, I say — trust more than 




President Kruger in war time. 

ever to the Almighty ; go to him for condo- 
lence ; think and be trustful in the thought that 
our brother's body has gone from among us to 
rise again in a beautiful and eternal home. Let 
us follow his example. Weep not, the Lord 



220 THE BOERS IN WAR 

will support you ; the hour of our relief is near ; 
and let us pray that we may enter heaven, and 
be guided to eternity in the same way as he 
whom we mourn so deeply. Amen." 

Early in his life Kruger formed an idea that 
the Boers were under the direct control ot 
Providence, and it displeased him greatly to 
learn that many petty thefts were committed 
by some of the burghers at the front. In sev- 
eral of the speeches to the burghers he referred 
to the shortcomings of some of them, and tried 
to impress on their minds that they could never 
expect the Lord to look with favour on their 
cause if they did not mend their ways. He 
made a plain reference to those sins in the 
oration he delivered over Joubert's body, and 
never neglected to tell the foreign volunteers 
that they had come into the country for fight- 
ing and not for looting. When an American 
corps of about fifty volunteers arrived in Pre- 
toria in April he requested them to call at his 
residence before leaving for the front, and the 
men were greatly pleased to receive and to ac- 
cept the invitation. The President walked to 
the sidewalk in front of his house to receive the 
Americans, and then addressed them in this 
characteristically blunt speech : '' I am very 
glad you have come here to assist us. I want 
you to look after your horses and rifles. Do 
not allow any one to steal them from you. Do 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 221 

not steal anybody else's gun or horse. Trust in 
God, and fight as hard as you can." 

Undoubtedly one of the most pathetic inci- 
dents in Kruger's life was his departure from 
Pretoria when the British army was only a short 
distance south of that city. It was bitter enough 
to him to witness the conquest of the veld dis- 
trict, the farms, and the plantations, but when 
the conquerors were about to possess the capi- 
tal of the country which he himself had seen 
grow out of the barren veld into a beautiful 
city of brick and stone, it was indeed a grave 
experience for an old man to pass through. It 
hurt him little to see Johannesburg fall to the 
enemy, for that city had always been in his ene- 
my's hands ; but when Pretoria, distinctly the 
Boer city, was about to become British, perhaps 
forever, the old man might have been expected 
to display signs of the great sorrow which he 
undoubtedly felt in his heart. At the threshold 
of such a great calamity to his cause it might 
have been anticipated that he would acknowl- 
edge defeat and ask for mercy from a magnani- 
mous foe. It was not dreamed that a man ot 
almost fourscore years would desert his home 
and familv, his farms and flocks, the result of a 
lifetime of labour, and endure the discomforts 
of the field merel}'- because he believed in a 
cause which, it seemed, was about to be extin- 
guished by force of arms. But adversity 



222 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



caused no changes in the President's demean- 
our. When he bade farewell to his good old 
wife — perhaps it was a final farewell — he 
cheered and comforted her, and when the 




President Kriiger's private car, used as the capitol after 
evacuation of Pretoria. 



weeping citizens and friends of many years 
gathered at the railway station to bid him 
good-bye he chided them for their lack of faith 
in the cause, and encouraged them to believe 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



223 



that victory would crown the Boers' efforts. 
Seven months before, Kruger had stood on the 
veranda of his residence and, doffing his hat 
to the first British prisoners that arrived in the 
city, asked his burghers not to rejoice unseem- 
ingly ; in May the old man, about to flee before 
the enemy, inspired his people to take new 
courage, and ridiculed their idea that all was 
lost. Whether the Boers were in the first flush 
of victory or in the depths of despair, Paul 
Kruger was ever the same to them — patriot, 
adviser, encourager, leader, and friend. 

It was an easy matter to see the President 
when he was at his residence at Pretoria, and 
he appeared to be deeply interested in learning 
the opinions of the many foreigners who arrived 
in his country. The little veranda of the ex- 
ecutive mansion — a pompous name for the small, 
one-story cottage — was the President's favourite 
resting and working place during the day. Just 
as in the times of peace he sat there in a big 
armchair discussing politics with groups of his 
countrymen, so while the war was in progress 
he was to be found there pondering over the 
grave subjects of the time. The countrymen 
who could formerly be observed with him at 
almost any time of the day were missing. They 
were at the front. Occasionally two or three 
old Boers could be seen chatting with him be- 
hind Barnato's marble lions, but invariably they 



224 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



had bandoliers around their bodies and rifles 
across their knees. Few of the old Boers who 
knew the President intimately returned from 
the front on leaves of absence without calling 
on him to explain to him the course and prog- 
ress of the war. 

According to his own declaration, his health 
was as good as it ever had been, even though 
the war added many burdens to his life. Not- 
withstanding he was seventy-five years old, he 
declared he was as sprightly as he was twenty 
years before, and he seemed to have the energy 
and vitality of a man of forty. The reports 
that his mind was affected were cruel hoaxes 
which had not the slightest foundation of fact. 
The only matter concerning which he worried 
was his eyesight, which had been growing 
weaker steadily for five years. That misfor- 
tune alone prevented him from accompanying 
his burghers to the front and sharing their bur- 
dens with them, and he frequently expressed 
his disappointment that he was unable to en- 
gage more actively in the defence of his coun- 
tr3\ When Pretoria fell into British hands 
Kruger again sacrificed his own interests for 
the welfare of his Government, and moved the 
capital into the fever districts — the low veld of 
the eastern part of the Transvaal. The deadly 
fever which permeates the atmosphere of that 
territory seemed to have no more terrors for 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



225 




F. W. Reitz, Secretary of State of the Transvaal. 

him than did the British bullets at Poplar 
Grove ; and he chose to remain in that dan- 
gerous locality in order that he might be in 
constant communication with his burghers and 



226 THE BOERS IN WAR 

the outside world, rather than to go farther into 
the isolated interior, where he would have as- 
sumed no such great risks to his health. 

Mr. Kruger was not a bitter enemy of the 
British nation, as might have been supposed. 
He was always an admirer of Britons and Brit- 
ish institutions, and the war did not cause him 
to alter his convictions. He despised only the 
men whom he charged with being responsible 
for the condition, and he never thought of hid- 
ing the identity of those men. He blamed Mr. 
Rhodes primarily for instigating the war, and 
held Mr. Chamberlain and Sir Alfred Milner 
equally responsible for bringing it about. 
Against these three men he was extremely bit- 
ter, and he took advantage of every opportu- 
nity for expressing his opinions of them and 
their work. In February he said that the real 
occasion of the war between the Boers and the 
British was Rhodes's desire for glory. '' He 
wants to be known as the maker of the South 
African Empire," he said, ''and the empire is 
not complete so long as there are two republics 
in the centre of the country." 

Whatever were the causes of the war it is 
certain that President Kruger did not make it 
in order to gain political supremacy in South 
Africa. The Dutch of Cape Colony, President 
Steyn of the Free State, and Secretary Reitz 
of the Transvaal, may have had visions of Dutch 



THE WAR PRESIDENTS 



227 



supremacy, but President Kruger had no such 
hopes. He invariably and strenuously denied 
that he had any aspirations other than the inde- 
pendence of his country, and all his words and 
works emphasized his statement to that effect. 
Several days before Commandant-General Jou- 
bert died, that intimate friend of the President 
declared solemnly that Kruger had never 
dreamed of expelling the British Government 
from South Africa, and much less had he made 
any agreement with the Dutch in other parts of 
the country with a view to such a result. It 
was a difficult matter to find a Transvaal Boer 
or a Boer from the northern part of the Free 
State who cared whether the British or the 
Dutch were paramount in South Africa so long 
as the republics were left unharmed ; but it was 
less difificult to meet Cape Colonists and Boers 
from the southern part of the Free State who 
desired that Great Britain's power in the country 
should be broken. If there was any real ani- 
mosity against Great Britain it was born on 
British soil in Cape Colony, and blown north- 
ward to where courage to fight was more abun- 
dant. Its source certainly was not in the north, 
and more certainly not with Paul Kruger, the 
man of peace. 

President Steyn, of the Orange Free State, 
occupied even a more responsible position than 

his friend President Kruger, of the Transvaal. 
16 



228 THE BOERS IN WAR 

At the beginning of hostilities Steyn found that 
hundreds of the British-born citizens of his State 
refused to enter his army, and consequently he 
was obliged to join the Transvaal with a much 
smaller force than he had reckoned upon. He 
was handicapped by the lack of generals of any 
experience, and he did not have a sufficient 
number of burghers to guard the borders of his 
own State. His Government had made but 
small preparations for war, and there was a lack 
of guns, ammunition, and equipment. The mo- 
bilization of his burghers was extremely diffi- 
cult, and required much more time than was 
anticipated, and everything seemed to be awry 
at a time when every detail should have been 
carefully planned and executed. As the respon- 
sible head of the Government and the veritable 
head of the army Steyn passed the crisis with a 
remarkable display of energy, ingenuity, and 
ability. After the army was in the field he gave 
his personal attention to the work of the depart- 
ments whose heads were at the front, and attend- 
ed to many of the details of the commissariat 
work in Bloemfontein. He frequently visited 
the burghers in the field, and gave them such 
encouragement as only the presence and praise 
of the leader of a nation can give to a people. 
In February he went to the republican lines at 
Ladysmith, and made an address, in which he 
affirmed that Sir Alfred Milner*s declaration 




be 
u 






230 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



that the power of Afrikanderism must be broken 
had caused the war. Several days later he was 
with his burghers at Kimberley, praising their 
valour and infusing them with renewed courage. 
A day or two afterward he was again in Bloem- 
fontein, arranging for the comfort of his men, 
and caring for the wives and children who were 
left behind. His duties were increased a hun- 
dred-fold as the campaign progressed, and when 
the first reverses came he alone was able to im- 
bue the men with new zeal. After Bloemfontein 
was captured by the British he transferred the 
capital to Kroonstad, and there, with the assist- 
ance of President Kruger, re-established the 
fighting spirit of the burgher army. He induced 
the skulking burghers to return to their com- 
patriots at the front, and formed the plans for 
future resistance against the invading army. 
When Lord Roberts's hosts advanced from 
Bloemfontein, President Steyn again moved the 
capital and established it at Heilbron. There- 
after the capital was constantly transferred from 
one place to another, but through all those 
vicissitudes the President clung nobly to his 
people and country. 



CHAPTER IX 

FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 

In every war there are men who are not 
citizens of the country with whose army they 
are fighting, and the '' soldier of fortune *' is as 
much a recognised adjunct of modern armies as 
he was in the days of knight-errantry. In the 
American Revolutionary War, both the colonial 
and British forces were assisted by many for- 
eigners, and in every great and small war since 
then the contending armies have had foreigners 
in their service. In the Franco-Prussian War 
there were a great number of foreigners, among 
them being one of the British generals who took 
a leading part in the Natal campaign. The 
brief Greco-Turkish War gave many foreign 
officers an opportunity of securing experience, 
while the Spaniards in the Hispano-American 
War had the assistance of a small number of 
European officers. Even the Filipinos have had 
the aid of a corps of foreigners, the leader of 
which, however, deserted Aguinaldo and joined 
the Boer forces. 

231 



^32 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



There is a fascination in civilized warfare 
which attracts men of certain descriptions, and 
to them a well-fought battle is the highest form 
of exciting amusement. All the world is in- 




Hon. Webster Davis, travelling in President Kruger's 
private car. 



terested in warfare among human beings, and 
there are records of men who delighted in fight- 
ing battles in order that public interest might 
be gratified. It may suggest a morbid or blood- 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



233 



thirsty spirit, this love of warfare, but no spec- 
tacle is finer, more magnificent, than a hard- 
fought game in which human lives are staked 
against a strip of ground — a position. It is not 
hard to understand why many men should be- 
come fascinated with warfare and travel to the 
ends of the earth in order to take part in it, but 
a soldier of fortune needs to make no apologies. 
The Boer army was augmented by many of these 
men who delight in war for fighting's sake, but 
a large number joined the forces because they 
believed the republics were contending for a 
just cause. 

The Boer was jealous of his own powers of 
generalship, and, when large numbers of for- 
eigners volunteered to lead their commandos, 
the farmers gave a decidedly negative reply. 
Scores of foreign officers arrived in the country 
shortly after the beginning of hostilities, and, 
intent upon securing fame and experience, asked 
to be placed in command, but no request of that 
kind was granted. The Boers felt that their 
system of warfare was the perfect one, and they 
scoffed at the suggestion that European officers 
might teach them anything in the military line. 
Every foreign officer was welcomed in Pretoria 
and in the laagers, but he was asked to enlist as 
a private or ordinary burgher. Commissions in 
the Boer army were not to be had for the ask- 
ing, as was anticipated, and many of the foreign 



234 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



officers were deeply disappointed in conse- 
quence. The Boers felt that the foreigners 
were unacquainted with the country and with 
the burgher mode of warfare, and lacked adroit- 
ness with the rifle, and they consequently re- 
fused to place lives and battles in the hands of 
men they believed to be incompetent. There 
were a few foreigners in the service of the 
Boers at the beginning of the war, but their 
number was so small as to have been without 
significance. Several European officers had 
been employed by the Governments of the re- 
publics to instruct young Boers in artillery 
work — and their instruction was invaluable — 
but the oft-repeated assertion that every com- 
mando was in charge of a foreign officer was as 
ridiculous as the story of the Cape Times which 
stated that the British retired from Spion Kop 
because no water was found on its summit. 

The influx of foreigners into the country be- 
gan simultaneously with the war and continued 
thereafter at the rate of about four hundred men 
a month. The volunteers, as they were called 
by the burghers, consisted of the professional 
soldier, the man in search of loot, the man who 
fought for love of justice, and the adventurer. 
The professional soldier was of much service to 
the burghers so long as he was content to remain 
under a Boer leader, but as soon as he attempted 
to operate on his own responsibility he became 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



23s 



not only an impediment to them but also a 
positive danger. In the early stages of the war 
the few foreign legions that existed met with 
disaster at Elandslaagte, and thereafter all the 
foreign volunteers were obliged to join a com- 
mando. After several months had passed the 
foreigners who were eager to have responsible 
commands prevailed upon the generals to allow 
the formation of foreign legions to operate in- 
dependently. The legion of France, the Amer- 
ican scouts, the Russian scouts, the German 
corps, and several other organizations were 
formed, and for a month after the investment 
of Bloemfontein these legions enlivened the 
situation by their frolicsome reports of attacks 
on the enemy's outposts. During those weeks 
the entire British army must have been put to 
flight scores of times, at the very least, if the re- 
ports of the foreign legions could be believed, 
and the British casualty list must have amounted 
to thrice the number of English soldiers in the 
country. The free rein given to the foreign 
legionaries was withdrawn shortly after Ville- 
bois-de-Mareuil and his small band of French- 
men met with disaster at Boshof, and thereafter 
all the foreigners were placed under the direct 
command of General De la Rey. 

The man in search of the spoils of war was 
not so numerous, but he made his presence felt 
by stealing whatever was portable and salable. 



236 THE BOERS IN WAR 

When he became surfeited with looting houses 
in conquered territory, and stealing horses, lug- 




A Cossack fighting with the Boers. 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



237 



gage and goods of lesser value in the laagers, he 
turned to Johannesburg and Pretoria and as- 
sisted in emptying residences and stores of their 
contents. This type of soldier of fortune never 
went into a battle of his own accord, and when 
he found himself precipitated into the midst of 
one he lost little time in reaching a place of 
safety. Almost on a par with the looter was 
the adventurer whose chief object in life seemed 
to be to tell of the battles he had assisted in 
winning. He was constantly in the laagers 
when there was no fighting in progress, but as 
soon as the report of a gun was heard the ad- 
venturer felt the necessity of going on urgent 
business to Pretoria. After the fighting he 
could always be depended upon to relate the 
wildest personal experiences that camp fires 
ever heard ; he could tell of amazing adventures 
in the wilds of South America, on the steppes 
of Siberia, and at other ends of the earth, and 
generally after each narrative he would make 
a request ior a ''loan.*' The only adventures 
he had during the war were those which he 
encountered while attempting to escape from a 
battle, and the only service he did to the Boer 
army was to assist in causing the disappearance 
of commissariat supplies. 

The men who fought with the Boers because 
they were deeply in sympathy with the repub- 
lican cause were in far greater numbers than 



238 THE BOERS IN WAR 

those with other motives, and their services 
were of much value to the federal forces. The 
majority of these men were in the country when 
war was begun, and were accepted as citizens 
of the country. They joined commandos and 
remained under Boer leaders during the entire 
campaign. In the same class were the volun- 
teers who entered the republics from Natal and 
Cape Colony for the purpose of assisting their 
coreligionists and kinsmen. Of these there were 
about six thousand at the beginning of hostili- 
ties, but constant desertions occurred, so that 
after the first six months of the war perhaps less 
than one third of them remained. The Afri- 
kanders of Natal and Cape Colony were not 
inferior in any respect to the Boers, whose 
forces they joined ; but when the tide of war 
changed and it became evident that the Boers 
would not triumph, they returned to their 
homes and farms in the colonies in order to 
save them from confiscation. Taking into con- 
sideration the fact that four fifths of the white 
population of the two colonies was of the same 
race and religion as the Boers, six thousand was 
not a large number of volunteers to join the 
federal forces. 

The artillery fire of the Boer was so remark- 
ably good that the delusion was cherished by 
the British commanders that foreign artillerists 
were in charge of all the guns. It was not 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



239 



believed that the Boers had any knowledge of 
arms other than rifles, but it was not an easy 
matter to find a foreigner at a cannon or rapid- 
fire gun. The field batteries of the State artil- 
lery of the Transvaal had two German officers 
of low rank who were in the country long 
before the war was begun, but all the other men 
who assisted with the field guns were 3^oung 
Boers. The heavy artillery in Natal was di- 
rected by M. M. Grunberg and S. Leon, repre- 
sentatives of Creusot, who manufactured the 
guns. M. Leon's ability as an engineer and 
gunner pleased Commandant-General Joubert 
so greatly that he gave him full authority over 
the artillery. Major Albrecht, the director of 
the Free State Artillery, Avas a foreigner by 
birth, but he became a citizen of the Free State 
long before the war and did sterling service to 
his country until he was captured with Cronje 
at Paardeberg. Otto von Lossberg, a German- 
American who had seen service in the armies of 
Germany and the United States, arrived in the 
country in March and was thereafter in charge 
of the artillery arm of the service, but the 
majority of the foreign artillerists were under 
Boer officers. 

None of the foreigners who served in the 
Boer army received any compensation. They 
were supplied with horses and equipment, at a 
cost to the Boer Governments of about thirty- 



240 



THE BOERS IN WAR 




five dollars for 
each volunteer, 
and they received 
better food than 
the burghers, but 
no wages were 
paid to them. Be- 
fore a foreign vol- 
unteer was al- 
lowed to join a 
commando, and 
before he received 
his equipment, he 
was obliged to 
take an oath of 
allegiance to the 
republic. Only a 
few men who de- 
clined to take the 
oath were allowed 
to join the army. 
The oath of alle- 
giance was an 
adaptation of the 
one which caused 
so much difficul- 
ty between Great 

Britain and the Transvaal before the war. A 

translation of it reads : 

'' I hereby make an oath of solemn allegiance 




Colonel Maximoff, of the Russian 
corps. 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



241 



to the people of the South African Republic, and 
I declare my willingness to assist with all my 
power the burghers of this republic in the war 
in which they are engaged. I further promise 
to obey the orders of those placed in authority 
according to law, and that I will work for 
nothing but the prosperity, the welfare, and the 
independence of the land and people of this 
republic. So truly help me, God Almighty." 

No army lists were ever to be found at Pre- 
toria or at the front, and it was as monumental 
a task to secure a fair estimate of the Boer 
forces as it was to obtain an estimate of the 
number of the foreigners who assisted them. 
The Boers had no men whom they could spare 
to detail to statistic work, and in consequence 
no correct figures can ever be obtained. The 
numerical strength of the various organizations 



Nationality. 


In organizations. 


In commandos. 


Frencli 


300 
400 
100 
300 
150 
100 
100 
200 


100 


Hollanders 


250 
125 
250 
150 
100 
50 


Russians 


Germans 


Americans 


Italians ». . . 

Scandinavians 


Irishmen 


Afrikanders 


6,000 






Totals 


1,650 


7,025 
1,650 




Grand total 


8,675 







242 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



of foreigners could readily be ascertained from 
their commanders, but many of the foreigners 
were in Boer commandos, and their strength 
was only problematical. An estimate, which 
was prepared by the correspondents who had 
good opportunities of forming as nearly a cor- 
rect idea as any one, resulted in the table on 
the preceding page, which gives the numbers 
of those in the various organizations as well as 
those in the commandos. 

The French legionaries were undoubtedly of 
more actual service to the Boers than the volun- 
teers of any other nationality, inasmuch as they 
were given the opportunities for doing valuable 
work. Before the war one of the large forts at 
Pretoria was erected by French engineers, and 
when the war was begun Frenchmen of military 
experience were much favoured by General Jou- 
bert, who was proud of his French extraction. 
The greater quantity of artillery had been pur- 
chased from French firms, and the commandant 
general wisely placed guns in the hands of the 
men who knew how to operate them well. 
MM. Grunberg and Leon were of incalculable 
assistance in transporting the heavy artillery 
over the mountains of Natal, and in securing 
positions for them where the fire of the ene- 
my's guns could not harm them. The work 
of the Canet guns, the famous '^ long toms " 
which the besieged in Ladysmith will remember 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



243 



as long as the siege itself remains in their mem- 
ory, was almost entirely the result of French 
hands and brains, while much of the havoc 
caused by the heavy artillery in the Natal bat- 
tles was due to the engineering and gunnery 
of Leon, Grunberg, and their countrymen who 
assisted them. After remaining in Natal until 
past the middle of January the two Frenchmen 
joined the Free State forces, to whom they ren- 
dered valuable assistance. Leon was wounded 
at Kimberley on February 12th, and, after assist- 
ing in establishing the ammunition works at Pre- 
toria and Johannesburg, returned to France. 
Viscount de Villebois-Mareuil was one of the 
many foreigners who joined the Boer arm)^ and 
lost their lives while fighting with the repub- 
lican forces. While ranking as colonel on the 
general staff of the French army, and when 
about to be promoted to the rank of general, he 
resigned from the service on account of the 
Dreyfus affair. A month after the commence- 
ment of the war, Villebois-Mareuil arrived in the 
Transvaal and went to the Natal front, where 
his mihtary experience enabled him to give 
advice to the Boer generals. In January the 
colonel attached himself to General Cronje's 
forces, wnth which he took part in many engage- 
ments. He w^as one of the few w^ho escaped 
from the disastrous fight at Paardeberg, and 
shortly afterward at a war council at Kroonstad 
17 



244 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



the French officer was created a brigadier gen- 
eral — the first and only one in the Boer army 
— and all the foreign legions were placed in 
his charge. It was purposed that he should 
harass the enemy by attacks on their lines of 
communication, and it was while he was at the 



sfP^dfe 



General De La Rey and Colonel Guorko, Russian military 

attache. 

outset of the first of these expeditions that he 
and twelve of his small force of sixty men were 
killed at Boshof, in the northwestern part of 
the Free State, early in April. Villebois-Mareuil 
was a firm believer in the final success of the 
Boer arms, and he received the credit of plan- 
ning two battles — second Colenso and Magers- 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



245 



fontein — which gave the Boers at least tempo- 
rary success. The viscount was a writer for the 
Revue des Deux Mondes, Le Correspondant, 
and La Liberte, the latter of which referred to 
him as the latter-day Lafayette. General Ville- 
bois-Mareuil was an exceptionally brave man, a 
fine soldier, and a gentleman whose friendship 
was prized. 

Lieutenant Gallopaud was another French- 
man who did sterling service to the Boers 
while he was subordinate to Colonel Villebois- 
Mareuil. At Colenso he led his men in an 
attack which met with extraordinary success, 
and later in the Free State campaign he distin- 
guished himself by creditable deeds in several 
battles. Gallopaud went to the Transvaal for 
experience, and secured both that and fame. 
After the death of Villebois-Mareuil, he was 
elected commandant of the French Legion, and 
before he joined De la Re3^'s army he had the 
novel pleasure of subduing a mutiny among 
some of his men. An Algerian named Mahomed 
Ben Naseur, who had not been favoured with 
the sight of blood for several weeks, threatened 
to shoot Gallopaud with a Mauser, but there 
was a cessation of hostilities on the part of the 
Algerian shortly after the big, powerful com- 
mandant went into action. 

The majority of the Hollanders who fought 
with the Boers were in the country when the 



246 THE BOERS IN WAR 

war was begun, and they made a practical dem- 
onstration of their belief in the Boer cause by 
going into the field with the first commandos. 
The Dutch corps was under the command of 
Commandant Smoronberg, the former drillmas- 
ter of the Johannesburg police. Among the 
volunteers were many young Hollanders who 
had been employed by the Government in Pre- 
toria and Johannesburg establishments and by 
the Netherlands railways. In its first engage- 
ment, at Elandslaagte in November, the corps 
was practically annihilated, and General Kock, 
the leader of the Uitlander Brigade, received 
his death wounds. Afterward the surviving 
members of the corps joined Boer commandos, 
where stray train loads of officers' wine, such as 
were found the day before the battle of Elands- 
laagte, were not allowed to interfere with the 
sobriety of the burghers. 

The Russian corps, under Commandant 
Alexis de Ganetzky and Colonel Prince Bara- 
trion-Morgaff, was formed after all the men had 
been campaigning under Boer officers in Natal 
for several months. The majority of the men 
were Johannesburgers without military experi- 
ence, who joined the army because there was 
nothing else to do. 

The German corps was as short-lived as the 
Hollander organization, it having been part of 
the force which met with disaster at Elands- 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



247 



laagte. Colonel Schiel, a German-Boer of brief 
military experience, led the organization, but was 
unable to display his abilities to any extent be- 
fore he was made a prisoner of war. Captain 
Count Harran von Zeplin was killed in the fight 
at Spion Kop, and Herr von Brusewitz was 
killed and Colonel Von Brown was captured 
at the Tugela. The corps was afterward re- 
organized, and under the leadership of Com- 
mandant Otto Krantz, of Pretoria, it fought 
valiantl}^ in several battles in the Free State. 
Among the many German volunteers who en- 
tered the country after the beginning of hos- 
tilities was Major Baron von Reitzenstein, the 
winner of the renowned long-distance horse- 
back race from Berlin to Vienna. He was a 
participant in battles at Colesburg and in Natal, 
and was eager to remain with the Boer forces 
until the end of the war, but was recalled by 
his Government, which had granted him a 
leave of absence from the German army. 
Three of the forts at Pretoria were erected by 
Germans, and the large fort at Johannesburg 
was built by Colonel Schiel. 

The Americans in South Africa who elected 
to fight under the Boer flags did not promise to 
win the war single-handed, and consequently 
the Boers were not disappointed in the achieve- 
ments of the volunteers from the sister repub- 
lic across the Atlantic. In proportion to their 



248 THE BOERS IN WAR 

numbers the Americans did as well as the best 
volunteer foreigners, and caused the Govern- 
ment less trouble and expense than any of the 
Uitlander organizations. The majority of the 
Americans spent the first months of the war in 
Boer commandos, and made no effort to estab- 
lish an organization of their own, although they 
were of sufficient numerical strength. A score 
or more of them joined the Irish Brigade or- 
ganized by Colonel J. G. Blake, a graduate of 
West Point Military Academy and a former offi^ 
cer in the American army, and accompanied the 
brigade through the first seven months of the 
Natal campaign. After the exciting days of 
that campaign John A. Hassell, an American 
who had been with the Vryheid commando, or- 
ganized the American scouts and succeeded in 
gathering what probably was the strangest body 
of men in the war. Captain Hassell himself was 
born in New Jersey, and was well educated in 
American public schools and schools of experi- 
ence. He spent the five years before the war ' 
in prospecting and shooting expeditions in vari- 
ous parts of South Africa, and had a better idea 
of the geographical features of the country than 
any of the commandants of the foreign legions. 
While he was with the Vrj^heid commando Has- 
sell was twice wounded, once in the attack on 
Csesar's Hill and again at Estcourt, where he 
received a ba3^onet thrust which disabled him 




< 



be 

:3 



250 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



for several weeks and deprived him of the 
honour of being General Botha's adjutant. 

The one American whose exploits will long 
remain in the Boer memory was John N. King, 
of Reading, Pa., who vowed that he would 
allow his hair to grow until the British had 
been driven from Federal soil. King began 
his career of usefulness to society at the time 
of the Johnstown flood, where he and some 
companions lynched an Italian who had been 
robbing the dead. Shortly afterward he gained 
a deep insight into matters journalistic by being 
the boon companion of a newspaper man. The 
newspaper man was in jail on a charge of lar- 
ceny, King for murder. When war was begun 
King was employed on a Johannesburg mine, 
and when one of his best friends determined to 
join the British forces he decided to enlist in 
the Boer army. Before parting the two made 
an agreement that neither should make the other 
prisoner in case they met on the battlefield. At 
Spion Kop King captured his friend unaAvares, 
and, after a brief friendly conversation and a 
farewell grasp of the hand. King shot him dead. 
King took part in almost every one of the Natal 
battles, and when there was no fighting to do 
he passed the time away in such reckless ex- 
ploits as going within the British firing line at 
Ladysmith to capture pigs and chickens. He 
bore a striking resemblance to Napoleon I, and 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



251 



loved blood as much as the little Corsican. 
When the scouts went out from Brandfort in 
April and killed several of the British scouts, 
King wept because he had remained in camp 
that day and had missed the opportunity of 
having a part in the engagement. 

The lieutenant of the scouts was John Shea, 
a gray-haired man who might have had grand- 
children old enough to fight. Shea fought with 
the Boers because he thought they had a right- 
eous cause, and not because he loved the smell 
of gunpowder, although he had learned what 
that was in the Spanish-American War. He 
endeavoured to introduce the American army 
system into the Boer army, but failed signally, 
and then fought side by side with old takhaars 
all during the Natal campaign. He was the 
guardian of the mascot of the scouts, William 
Young, a thirteen-year-old American, who was 
acquainted with every detail of the prelimina- 
ries of the war. William witnessed all except 
two of the Natal battles and several of those in 
the Free State, and could relate all the stirring 
incidents in connection with each, but he could 
tell nothing more concerning his birthplace than 
that it was ''near the shore in America," both 
his parents having died when he was quite 
young. Then there was able-bodied seaman 
William Thompson, who was in the Wabash, of 
the United States Navy, and served under Mac 



252 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



Cuen in the Chinese-Japanese War. Thompson 
and two others tried to steal a piece of British 
heavy artillery while it was in action at Lady- 
smith, but were themselves captured by some 
Boers who did not believe in modern miracles. 
Of newspaper men, there were half a dozen who 
laid aside the pen for the sword. George Par- 
sons, a Collier's Weekly man, who was once left 
on a desert island at the east end of Cuba to 
deliver a message to Gomez, several hundred 
miles away; J. B. Clarke, of Webberville, Mich., 
who was correspondent for a Pittsburg news- 
paper whenever some one could commandeer 
the necessary stamps ; and four or five corre- 
spondents of country weeklies in Western States. 
Starfield and Hiley were two Texans of Amer- 
ican army experience who fought Avith the Boers 
because they had faith in their cause. Starfield 
claimed the honour of having been pursued for 
half a day by two hundred British cavalrymen; 
while Hiley, the finest marksman in the corps, 
had the distinction of killing Lieutenant Carron, 
an American in Lord Loch's horse, in a fierce 
duel behind ant heaps at Modder River on 
April 2 1st. Later in the campaign many of 
the Americans who entered the country for the 
purpose of fighting joined Hassell's scouts, and 
added to the cosmopolitan character of the or- 
ganization. One man came from Puget Sound in 
a sailing vessel. Another arrival boldly claimed 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



253 



to be the American military attache at the Paris 
Exposition, and then requested every one to keep 
the matter a secret for fear the War Department 
should hear of his presence in South Africa and 
recall him. On the way to Africa he had a mar- 
vellous midnight experience on board ship with 
a masked man who shot him through one of his 
hands. Later the same wound was displayed as 
having been received at Magersfontein, Colenso, 
and Spion Kop. This industrious youth became 
adjutant to Colonel Blake, and assisted that pic- 
turesque Irish-American in securing the services 
of the half hundred American Red Cross men 
who deserted their society as soon as they en- 
tered the Boer country. 

Of the many Americans who fought in Boer 
commandos none did better service or was 
regarded more highly by the Boers than Otto 
von Lossberg, of New Orleans, La. Lossberg 
was born in Germany, and received his first 
military training in the army of his native 
country. He afterward became an American 
citizen, and was with General Miles's army in 
the Porto Rico campaign. He arrived in the 
Transvaal in March, and on the last day of that 
month was in charge of the artillery which 
assisted in defeating Colonel Broadwood's col- 
umn at Sannaspost. Two days later, in the 
fight between General Christian De Wet and 
McQueenies' Irish Fusileers, Lossberg was se- 



254 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



verely wounded in the head, but a month later 
he was again at the front. With him continually 
was Baron Ernst von Wrangel, who was a 
grandson of the famous Marshal Wrangel, and 
a corporal in the American army during the 
Cuban War. 

When one of the four sons of State Secretary 
Reitz, who were fighting with the Boer army, 
asked his father for permission to join the Irish 
Brigade, the secretary gave an excellent descrip- 
tion of the organization : '' The members of the 
Irish Brigade do their work well, and they 
fight remarkably well, but, my son, they are not 
gentle in their manner." Blake and his men 
were among the first to cross the Natal frontier, 
and their achievements were notable, even if the 
men lacked gentleness of manner. The brigade 
took part in almost every one of the Natal en- 
gagements, and when General Botha retreated 
from the Tugela, Colonel Blake and seventy -five 
of his men bravely attacked and drove back into 
Ladysmith a squadron of cavalry which intended 
to cut off the retreat of Botha's starving and ex- 
hausted burghers. Blake and his men were 
guarding a battery on Lombard Kop, a short 
distance east of Ladysmith, when he learned 
that Joubert was leading the retreat northward 
and allowing Botha with his two thousand men 
to continue their ten days' fighting without re- 
enforcements. Instead of retreating with the 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 255 




Colonel Blake, of the Irish Brigade. 

Other commandos, Blake and seventy-five of his 
men stationed themselves on the main road be- 
tween Ladysmith and Colenso, and awaited the 



256 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



coming of Botha. A force of cavalry, consisting 
of three hundred men, was observed coming out 
of the besieged city, and it was apparent that 
they could readily cut off Botha from the other 
Boers. Blake determined to make a bold bluff 
by scattering his small force over the hills and 
attacking the enemy from different directions. 
The men were ordered to tire as rapidly as pos- 
sible, in order to impress the British cavalry 
with a false idea of the size of the force. The 
seventy-five Irishmen and Americans made as 
much noise with their guns as a Boer com- 
mando of a thousand men usually did, and the 
result was that the cavalry wheeled about and 
returned into Ladysmith. Botha and his men, 
dropping out of their saddles from sheer exhaus- 
tion and hunger, came up from Colenso a short 
time after the cavalry had been driven back, and 
made their memorable journey to Joubert's new 
headquarters at Glencoe. It was one of the few 
instances where the foreigners were of any re- 
ally great assistance to the Boers. 

After the relief of Ladysmith the Irish Bri- 
gade was sent to Helpmakaar Pass, and remained 
there for six weeks, until Colonel Blake suc- 
ceeded in inducing the war department to send 
them to the Free State, where these sons of the 
old sod might make a display of their valour to 
the world, but more especially to Michael Dav- 
itt, the Irish leader, who was then visiting in 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



257 



the country. When the brigade was formed it 
was not necessary to show an Irish birth certifi- 
cate in order to become a member of the organ- 
ization, and consequently there were Swedes, 
Russians, Germans, and Italians marching under 
the green flag. A second Irish Brigade was 
formed in April by Arthur Lynch, an Irish- 
Australian, who was the former Paris corre- 
spondent of a London daily newspaper. Colo- 
nel Lynch and his men were in several battles 
in Natal, and received warm praise from the 
Boer generals. 

The Italian Legion Avas commanded by a 
man who loved war and warfare. Camillo Richi- 
ardi and General Louis Botha were probably 
the two handsomest men in the arm}^ and both 
were the idols of their men. Captain Richiardi 
had his first experience with war in Abyssinia 
when he fought with the Italian army. When 
the Philippine war began he joined the fortunes 
of Aguinaldo and became the leader of the 
foreign legion. For seven months he fought 
against the i\merican soldiers, not because he 
hated the Americans, but because he loved 
fighting more. When the Boer war seemed to 
promise more exciting work, Richiardi left 
Aguinaldo's forces and joined a Boer commando 
as a burgher. After studying Boer methods 
for several months, he formed an organization 
of scouts, which was of great service to the 



258 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



army. Before the relief of Ladysmith the 
Italian scouts was the ablest organization of its 
kind in the republics. 




Captain Richiardi, of the Italian scouts. 



The Scandinavian corps joined Cronje's army 
after the outbreak of war, and took part in 
the battle of Magersfontein on December iith. 
The corps occupied one of the most exposed 



FOREIGNERS IN THE WAR 



259 



positions during that battle, and lost forty-five 
of the fifty-two men engaged. Commandant 
Flygare was shot in the abdomen, and was be- 
ing carried off the field by Captain Barendsen, 
when a bullet struck the captain in the head and 
killed him instantly. Flygare extricated him- 
self from beneath Barendsen's body, rose, and 
led his men in a charge. When he had pro- 
ceeded about twenty yards a bullet passed 
through his head, and his men leaped over his 
corpse only to meet a similar fate a few minutes 
later. 



18 



CHAPTER X 

BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 

One of the most glorious pages in the his- 
tory of the Boer nation relates to the work of 
the women who fought side by side with their 
husbands against the hordes of murderous Zulus 
in the days of the early voortrekkers. It is the 
story of hardy Boer women, encompassed by 
thousands of bloodthirsty natives, fighting over 
the lifeless bodies of their husbands and sons, 
and repelling the attacks of the savages with a 
spirit and strength not surpassed by the valiant 
burghers themselves. The magnificent heritage 
which these mothers of the latter-day Boer na- 
tion left to their children was not unworthily 
borne by the women of the end of the century, 
and the work which they accomplished in the 
war of 1899-1900 was none the less valuable, 
even though it was less hazardous and romantic, 
than that of their ancestors whose blood min- 
gled with that of the savages on the grassy 
slopes of the Natal mountains. 

The conspicuous part played in the war by 
260 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 



261 



the Boer women was but a sequence to that 
which they took in the political affairs of the 
country before the commencement of hostilities, 




Four generations of the Kruger family. 

Mrs. Paul Kruger, Mrs. F. C. Eloff, Mrs. Louis Jacobz, and 
Baby Jacobz. 



262 ^^HE BOERS IN WAR 

and both were excellent demonstrations of their 
great patriotism and their deep loyalty to the 
republics which they loved. Some one has said 
that real patriotism is bred only on the farms 
and plains of a country, and no better exempli- 
fication of the truth of the saying was necessary 
than that which was afforded by the wives and 
mothers of the burghers of the two South Afri- 
can republics. Many months before the first 
shot of the war was fired the patriotic Boer 
women began to take an active interest in the 
discussion of the grave affairs of state, and it 
increased with such amazing rapidity and vol- 
ume that they were prepared for hostilities 
long before the men. Women urged their hus- 
bands, fathers, and brothers to end the long 
period of political strife and uncertainty by 
shouldering arms and fighting for their inde- 
pendence. Even sooner than the men, the Boer 
women realized that peace must be broken some 
time in order to secure real tranquility in the 
country, and she who lived on the veld and was 
patriotic was anxious to have the storm come 
and pass as quickly as possible. So enthusiastic 
were the women before the war that it was a 
common saying among them that if the men 
were too timorous to fight for their liberty the 
daughters and granddaughters of the heroines 
who fought against the Zulus at Weenen and 
Doornkop would take up arms. 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 263 

Even before the formal declaration of war 
was made many of the Boer women prevailed 
upon their husbands, brothers, and sons to leave 
their homes and go to the borders of the Boer 
country to guard against any raids that might be 
attempted by the enemy, and in many instances 
women accompanied the men to prepare their 
meals and give them comfort. These manifes- 
tations of warlike spirit were not caused by the 
women's love of war — for they were even more 
peace-loving than the men — but they were the 
natural result of a desire to serve their country 
at a time when they considered it to be in great 
peril. The women knew that war would mean 
much bloodshed and the death of many of those 
whom they loved, but all those selfish considera- 
tions were laid aside when they believed that 
the life of their country was at stake. 

For weeks preceding the commencement of 
hostilities, farmers' wives on the veld busied 
themselves with making serviceable corduroy 
clothing, knapsacks, and bread bags for their 
male relatives who were certain to go on com- 
mando ; and when it became known that an 
ultimatum would be sent to Great Britain, the 
women prepared the burghers' outfits, so that 
there should be no delay in the men's departure 
for the front as soon as the declaration of war 
was made. 

No greater or harder work was done by the 



264 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



women during the entire war than that which 
fell to their lot immediately following the formal 
declaration of war by the authorities. In the 
excitement of the occasion the Government had 
neglected to make any satisfactory arrange- 
ments for supplying the burghers with food 
while on the journey to the front and afterward, 
and consequently there was much suffering from 
lack of provisions and supplies. At this junc- 
ture the Avomen came to the rescue, and in a 
trice they had remedied the great defect. Every 
farmhouse and every city residence became a 
bakery, and for almost two months all the bread 
consumed by the burgher army was prepared 
by the Boer women. Organizations were 
formed for this purpose in every city and town 
in the country, and by means of a well-planned 
division of labour this improvised commissariat 
department was as effective as that which was 
afterward organized by the Government. Cer- 
tain women baked the bread, prepared sand- 
wiches, and boiled coflee ; others procured the 
supplies, and others distributed the food at the 
various railway stations through which the com- 
mando trains passed, or carried it directly to 
the laagers. One of the women who was tire- 
less in her efforts to feed the burghers and make 
them comfortable as they passed through Pre- 
toria on the railway was Mrs. F. W. Reitz, the 
wife of the Transvaal State Secretary, and 




Mrs. General Meyer. 



266 THE BOERS IN WAR 

never a commando train passed through the 
capital that she was not there to distribute sand- 
wiches, coffee, and milk. 

When the first battles of the campaign had 
been fought and the wounded were being 
brought from the front, the women again vol- 
unteered to assist an embarrassed Government, 
and no nobler, more energetic efforts to relieve 
suffering were ever made than those of the pa- 
triotic daughters of the Transvaal and Orange 
Free State. Women from the farms assisted in 
the hospitals ; wives, who directed the herding 
of cattle during the absence of their husbands, 
went to the towns and to the laager hospitals ; 
young schoolgirls deserted their books and as- 
sisted in giving relief to the burghers who were 
bullet-maimed or in the delirium of fever. No 
station in life was unrepresented in the human- 
itarian work. Two daughters of the former 
President of the Transvaal, the Rev. Thomas 
Frangois Burgers, were nurses in the Burke 
Hospital, in Pretoria, which was established and 
maintained by a Boer burgher. Miss Martha 
Meyer, a daughter of General Lucas Meyer, 
devoted herself assiduously to the relief of the 
wounded in the same hospital, and in the insti- 
tution which Barney Barnato established in 
Johannesburg there were scores of young 
women nurses who cared for British and Boer 
wounded with unprejudiced attention. In every 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 267 

laager at the front there were young Boer vrou- 
wen who, under the protection of the Red Cross, 
and indifferent to the creed, caste, or country of 
the wounded and dying, assuaged the suffering 
of those who were intrusted to their care. In 
the hospital trains which carried the wounded 
from the battlefields to the hospitals in Pretoria 
and Johannesburg were Boer women who con- 
sidered themselves particularly fortunate in 
having been able to secure posts where they 
could be of service ; while at the stations where 
the trains halted were Boer women bearing 
baskets of fruit and bottles of milk for the un- 
fortunate burghers and soldiers in the carriages. 
When the war began and all the large mines 
on the Witwatersrand, and all the big industries 
and stores in Johannesburg and Pretoria were 
obliged to cease operations, much distress pre- 
vailed among the poorer classes of foreigners 
who were left behind when the great exodus 
was concluded, and after a few months their 
poverty became most acute. Again the Boer 
women shouldered the burden, and in a thousand 
different wavs relieved the suffering: of those 
who were the innocent victims of the war. Sub- 
scription lists were opened, and the wealthy 
Boers contributed liberally to the fund for the 
distressed. Depots, where the needy could se- 
cure food and clothing, were established ; while 
a soup kitchen, where Mrs. Peter Maritz Botha, 



268 THE BOERS IN WAR 

one of the wealthiest women in the republics, 
stood behind a table and distributed food to 
starving men and women, was a veritable bless- 
ing to hundreds of needy foreigners. In Jo- 
hannesburg, Boer women searched through the 
poorest quarters of the city for families in need 
of food or medicine, and never a needy individ- 
ual was neglected. Among the few thousand 
British subjects who remained behind there 
were many who were in dire straits, but Boer 
women made no distinction between friend and 
enemy when there was an opportunity for per- 
forming a charitable deed ; nor was their char- 
ity limited to civilians and those who were 
neutral in their sentiments with regard to the 
war. When the British prisoners of war were 
confined in the race course at Pretoria the Boer 
women sent many a wagon load of fruit, luxuries, 
and reading matter to the soldiers who had been 
sent against them to deprive them of that which 
they esteemed most — the independence of their 
countr3^ The spirit which animated the women 
was never better exemplified than by the action 
of a little Boer girl of about ten years who ap- 
proached a British prisoner on the platform of 
the station at Kroonstad and gave him a bottle 
of milk which she had kept carefully concealed 
under her apron. The soldier hardly had time 
to thank her for her gift before she turned and 
ran away from him as rapidly as she had the 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 269 

strength. It seemed as if she loved him as a 
man in distress, but feared him as a soldier and 
hated him as an enemy of her country. 

Besides assisting in the care of the wounded, 
the baking of bread for the burghers, and giv- 
ing aid to the destitute, the women of the farms 
were obliged to attend to the flocks and herds 
which were left in their charge when the fathers, 
husbands, and brothers went to the front to 
fight. All the laborious duties of the farm were 
performed by the women, and it was common 
to witness a woman at work on the fields or 
driving a long ox wagon along the roads. When 
the tide of war changed and the enemy drove 
the burghers to the soil of the republics, the 
work of the women became even more labo- 
rious and diversified. The widely separated 
farmhouses then became typical lunch stations 
for the burghers, and the women willingly were 
the proprietresses. Boers journeying from one 
commando to another, or scouts and patrols on 
active duty, stopped at the farmhouses for food 
for themselves and their horses, and the women 
gladly prepared the finest feasts their larders 
afforded. No remuneration was ever accepted, 
and the realization that they were giving even 
indirect assistance to their country's cause was 
deemed sufficient payment for an)^ work per- 
formed. Certain farmhouses which were situ- 
ated near frequently travelled roads became the 



270 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



well-known rendezvous of the burghers, and 
thither all the women in the neighbourhood 
wended their way to assist in preparing meals 
for them. Midway between Smaldeel and 






Pff^*^!^^:^ 



Wife and children of John Steyl. 
House was destroyed by British shortly after photograph was taken. 



Brandfort was one of that class of farmhouses, 
and never a meal time passed that Mrs. Barnard 
did not entertain from ten to fifty burghers. 
Near Thaba N'Chu was the residence of John 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 



271 



Steyl, a member of the Free State Raad, whose 
wife frequently had more than a hundred 
burgher guests at one meal. When the battle 
of Sannaspost was being fought a short distance 
from her home, Mrs. Steyl was on one of the 
hills overlooking the battlefield, interspersing 
the watching of the progress of the battle with 
prayers for the success of the burghers' arms. 
As soon as she learned that the Boers had won 
the field she hastened home and prepared a 
sumptuous meal for her husband, her thirteen- 
year-old son, and all the generals who took part 
in the engagement. 

When the winter season approached and the 
burghers called upon the Government for the 
heavy clothing which they themselves could 
not secure, there was another embarrassing 
situation, for there was only a small quantity of 
ready-made clothing in the country, and it was 
not an easy matter to secure it through the 
blockaded port at Delagoa Bay. There was an 
unlimited quantity of cloth in the country, but 
as all the tailors were in the commandos at the 
front the difficulty of converting the material 
into suits and overcoats seemed to be insur- 
mountable until the women found a way. Un- 
mindful of the other vast duties they were en- 
gaged in, they volunteered to make the cloth- 
ing, and thenceforth every Boer home was a 
tailor's shop. President Kruger's daughters and 



272 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



granddaughters, the Misses Eloff, who had been 
foremost in many of the other charitable works, 
undertook the management of the project, and 
they continued to preside over the labours of 
several hundred women who worked in the High 
Court building in Pretoria until the British 
forces entered the city. Thousands of suits of 
clothing and overcoats were made and for- 
warded to the burghers in the field to protect 
them against the rigours of the South African 
winter's nights. 

One of the most conspicuous parts played in 
the war by the Boer women was that of urging 
their husbands and sons to abbreviate their 
leaves of absence and return to their comman- 
dos. The mothers and wives of the burghers 
of the republics gave many glorious examples of 
their unselfishness and deep love of country, but 
none were of more material benefit than their 
efforts to preserve the strength of the army in 
the field. When the burghers returned to their 
homes on furloughs of from five days to two 
weeks the wives urged their immediate return, 
and in many instances insisted that they should 
rejoin their commandos forthwith, upon pain of 
receiving no food if they remained at home. It 
was one of the Boer's absolute necessities to have 
a furlough every two or three months, and unless 
it was given to him by the officers he was more 
than likely to take it without the prescribed 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 



273 



permission. When burghers without such writ- 
ten permits reached their homes they were not 




The Misses Eloff. 
Granddaughters of President Kruger. 



274 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



received by their wives with the customary 
cordiality, and the air of frigidity which encom- 
passed them soon compelled them to return to 
the field. The Boer women despised a coward, 
or a man who seemed to be shirking his duty to 
his country, and, not unlike their sisters in 
lands of older civilization, they possessed the 
power of expressing their disapprobation of 
such acts. It was not uncommon for the women 
to threaten to take their husbands' posts of duty 
if the men insisted upon remaining at home, and 
invariably the ruse was efficient in securing the 
burghers' early return. 

During the war there were many instances 
to prove that the Boer women of the end of the 
century inherited the bravery and heroic forti- 
tude of their ancestors, who fell victims to the 
Zulu assagais in the Natal Valley in 1838. The 
Boer women were as anxious to take an active 
part in the campaign as their grandmothers 
were at Weenen, and it was only in obedience 
to the rules formulated by the officers that 
Amazon corps were absent from the comman- 
dos. Instances were not rare of women tres- 
passing these regulations, and scores of Boer 
women can claim the distinction of having taken 
part in many bloody battles. Not a few yielded 
up their life-blood on the altar of liberty, and 
many will carry the scars of bullet wounds to 
the grave. 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 



275 



In the early part of the campaign there was 
no military rule which forbade women journey- 
ing to the front, and in consequence the laagers 




General and Mrs. Louis Botha. 

enjoyed the presence of many of the wives and 
daughters of the burghers. Commandant-Gen- 
eral Joubert set an example to his men by 
19 



276 THE BOERS IN WAR 

having Mrs. Joubert continually with him on 
his campaigning trips, and the burghers were 
not slow in patterning after him. While the 
greater part of the army lay around besieged 
Ladysmith, large numbers of women were in 
the laagers, and they were continually busying 
themselves with the preparation of food for 
their relatives and with the care of the sick and 
wounded. Not infrequently did the women 
accompany their husbands to the trenches along 
the Tugela front, and it was asserted, with every 
evidence of veracity, that many of them used 
the rifles against the enemy with even more 
ardour and precision than the men. On Feb- 
ruary 28th, while the fighting around Pieter's 
Hill was at its height, the British forces cap- 
tured a Boer woman of nineteen years who had 
been fatally wounded. Before she died she 
stated that she had been fighting from the same 
trench with her husband, and that he had been 
killed only a few minutes before a bullet struck 
her. 

While the Boer army was having its many 
early successes in Natal few of the women par- 
took in the actual warfare from choice or be- 
cause they believed that it was necessary for 
them to fight. The majority of those who were 
in the engagements happened to be with their 
husbands when the battles were begun and had 
no opportunity of escaping. The burghers ob- 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 



277 



jected to the presence of women within the 
firing lines, and every effort was made to pre- 
vent them from being in dangerous localities; 
but when it was impossible to transfer them to 
places of safety during the heat of the battle, 
there was no alternative but to provide them 
with rifles and bandoliers so that they might 
protect themselves. The half hundred women 
who endured the horrors of the siege at Paarde- 
berg with Cronje's small band of warriors chose 
to remain with their husbands and brothers 
when Lord Roberts offered to convey them 
to places of safety ; but they were in no 
wise an impediment to the burghers, for they 
assisted in digging trenches and wielded the 
carbines as assiduously as the most energetic 
men. 

One of the women who received the Gov- 
ernment's sanction to join a commando was 
Mrs. Otto Krantz, the wife of a professional 
hunter. Mrs. Krantz accompanied her husband 
to Natal at the commencement of hostilities and 
remained in the field during almost the entire 
campaign in that colony. In the battle of 
Elandslaagte, where some of the hardest hand- 
to-hand fighting of the war occurred, this 
Amazon was by the side of her husband in the 
thick of the engagement, but escaped unscathed. 
Later she took part in the battles along the 
Tugela, and, when affairs in the Free State ap- 



278 THE BOERS IN WAR 

peared to be threatening, she was one of the 
first to go to the scene of action in that part of 
the country. 

Among the prisoners captured by the British 
forces at Colesburg were three Boer women 
who wore men's clothing, but it was not until 
after they had been confined in the prison ship 
at Cape Town for several weeks that their sex 
was discovered. A real little Boertje was 
Helena Herbst Wagner, of Zeerust, who spent 
five months in the laagers and in the trenches 
without her identity being revealed. Her hus- 
band went to the field early in the war and left 
her alone with a baby. The infant died in Jan- 
uary, and the disconsolate widow donned her 
husband's clothing, obtained a rifle and bando- 
lier, and went to the Natal front to search for 
her soldier spouse. Failing to find him, she 
joined the forces of Commandant Ben Viljoen 
and faced bullets, bombs, and lyddite at Spion 
Kop, Pont Drift, and Pieter's Hills. During 
the retreat to Von Tonder's Nek the young 
woman learned that her husband lay seriously 
wounded in the Johannesburg Hospital, and she 
deserted the army temporarily. 

When Louis Botha became commandant 
general of the army he issued an order that 
women should not be permitted to visit the 
laagers, and few if any took part in the engage- 
ments for some time thereafter. When the 



BOER AYOMEN IN THE AVAR 



279 



forces of the enemy approached Pretoria the 
women made heroic efforts to encourage the 
burghers, and frequently went to the laagers to 
cheer them to renewed resistance. Mrs. General 




Mrs. General Meyer preparing her husband's breakfast. 



Botha and Mrs. General Me3^er were speciall}^ 
energetic and effective in their efforts to instil 
new courage in the men, and during the war 
there was no scene which was more edifying 
than that of those patriotic Boer women riding 



28o THE BOERS IN WAR 

about the laagers and beseeching the burghers 
not to yield to despair. 

On the 15th of May more than a thousand 
women assembled in the Government buildings 
at Pretoria for the purpose of deciding upon a 
course of action in the terrible crisis which con- 
fronted the republic. It was the gravest assem- 
blage that was ever gathered together in the 
city — a veritable concourse of Spartan mothers. 
There was little speech, for the hearts of all 
were heavy, and tears were more plentiful than 
words, but the result of the meeting was the 
best testimonial of its value. 

It was determined to ask the Government to 
send to the front all the men who were em- 
ployed in the commissariat, the Red Cross, 
schools, post and telegraph offices, and to fill 
the vacancies thus created with women. A 
memorial, signed by Mrs. H. S. Bosnian, Mrs. 
General Louis Botha, Mrs. F. Eloff, Mrs. P. M. 
Botha, and Mrs. F. W. Reitz, was adopted for 
transmission to the Government, asking for per- 
mission to make such changes in the commis- 
sariat and other departments, and ending with 
these two significant clauses : 

I. '' A message of encouragement will be sent 
to our burghers who are at the front, beseeching 
them to present a determined stand against the 
enemy in the defence of our sacred cause, and 
pointing out to those who are losing heart the 



BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR 28 1 

terrible consequences which will follow should 
they prove weak and wanting in courage at the 
present crisis in our affairs. 

2. '' The women throughout the whole State 
are requested to provide themselves with weap- 
ons, in the first instance to be employed in self- 
defence, and secondly so that they may be in a 
position to place themselves entirely at the dis- 
position of the Government." 

The last request was rather superfluous, in 
view of the fact that the majority of the women 
in the Transvaal were already provided with 
arms. There was hardly a Boer homestead 
which was not supplied with enough rifles for 
all the members of the family, and there were 
but few women who were not adepts in the use 
of firearms. In Pretoria a woman's shooting 
club was organized at the outset of the war, 
and among the best shots were the Misses 
Eloff, the President's granddaughters ; Mrs. 
Van Alphen, the wife of the Postmaster Gen- 
eral ; and Mrs. Reitz, the wife of the State Sec- 
retary. The object of the organization was to 
train the members in the use of the rifle, so that 
they might defend the city against the enemy. 
The club members took great pride in the fact 
that Mrs. Paul Kruger was the president of the 
organization, and it was mutually agreed that 
the aged woman should be constantly guarded 
by them in the event of Pretoria being be- 



282 THE BOERS IN WAR 

sieged. Happily, the city was not obliged to 
experience that horror, and the club members 
were spared the ordeal of protecting President 
and Mrs. Kruger with their rifles as they had 
vowed to do. 

The Boer women endured many discomforts, 
suffered many griefs, and bore many heartaches 
on account of the war and its varying fortunes, 
but throughout all they acted bravely. There 
were no wild outbursts of grief when fathers, 
husbands, brothers, or sons were killed in battle, 
and no untoward exclamations of joy when one 
of them earned distinction on the field. Re- 
verses of the army were made the occasions for 
a renewed display of patriotism, or the signal 
for the sending of another relative to the field. 
Unselfishness marked all the works of the woman 
of the city and veld, and the welfare of the coun- 
try was her only ambition. She might have had 
erroneous opinions concerning the justice of the 
war and the causes which were responsible for 
it ; but she realized that the land for which her 
mother and grandmother had wept and bled, 
and for which all those whom she loved were 
fighting and dying, was in distress, and she was 
patriotic enough to offer herself for a sacrifice 
on her country's altar. 



CHAPTER XI 

INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 

In every battle, and even in a day's life in 
the laagers, there were multitudes of interest- 
ing incidents as only such a war produces, and, 
although Sherman's saying that '' war is hell " 
was as true then as it ever was, there was always 
a plenitude of amusing spectacles and events 
to lighten the burdens of the fighting burghers. 
There were the sad sides of warfare, as natu- 
rally there would be, but to these the men in 
the armies soon became hardened, and only 
the amusing scenes made any lasting impres- 
sion upon their minds. It was strange that 
when a burgher saw one of his fellow-burgh- 
ers killed in a horrible manner, and witnessed 
an amusing runaway, after the battle he should 
relate the details of the latter and say nothing 
of the former, but such was usually the case. 
Men came out of the bloody Spion Kop fight 
and related amusing incidents of the struggle, 
while they never touched upon the grave phases 
until long afterward, when their fund of laugh- 

283 



284 THE BOERS IN WAR 

able experiences was exhausted. After the bat- 
tle of Sannaspost the burghers would tell of 
nothing but the amusing manner in which the 
drivers of the British transport wagons acted 
when they found that they had fallen into the 
hands of the Boers in the bed of the spruit, and 
the fun the burghers had in pursuing the fleeing 
cavalrymen. At the end of almost every battle 
there was some conspicuous amusing incident 
which was told and retold and laughed about 
until a new and fresh story came to light to take 
its place. 

In one of the days' fighting at Magersfontein 
a number of youthful Boers, who were in their 
first battle, allowed about one hundred High- 
landers to approach within a hundred yards 
of the trench in which they were concealed, 
and then sprang out and shouted '' Hands up ! '' 
The Highlanders were completely surprised, 
promptly threw down their arms, and ad- 
vanced with hands above their heads. One of 
the young Boers approached them, then called 
his friends, and, scratching his head, asked, 
** What shall we do with them?" There was 
a brief consultation, and it was decided to al- 
low the Highlanders to return to their column. 
When the young burghers arrived at the Boer 
laager with the captured rifles and bandoliers 
General Cronje asked them why they did not 
bring the men. The youths looked at each 



INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 



285 



Other for a while, then one replied, rather 
sheepishly, *' We did not know they were 
wanted." In the same battle an old Boer had 
his first view of the quaintly dressed High- 
landers, and at a distance mistook them for a 
herd of ostriches from a farm that was known 
to be in the neighbourhood, refused to fire 
upon them, and persuaded all the burghers in 
his and the neighbouring trenches that they 
were ostriches and not human beings. 

During the second battle at Colenso a large 
number of Boers swam across the river and 
captured thirty or forty British soldiers who 
had lost the way and had taken refuge in a 
sluit. An old takhaar among the Boers had 
discarded almost all his clothing before entering 
the river and was rather an amusing spectacle 
in shirt, bandolier, and rifle. One of the Brit- 
ish soldiers went up to the takhaar, looked at 
him from head to foot and, after saluting most 
servilely, inquired, '' To what regiment do you 
belong, sir?" The Boer returned the salute, 
and, without smiling, replied, '' I am one of 
Rhodes's * uncivilized Boers,* sir." In the same 
fight an ammunition wagon, heavily laden and 
covered with a huge piece of duck, was in an 
exposed position and attracted the fire of the 
British artillery. General Meyer and a number 
of burghers were near the wagon and were 
waiting for a lull in the bombardment, in order 



286 THE BOERS IN WAR 

to take the vehicle to a place of safety. They 
counted thirty-five shells that fell around the 
wagon without striking it, and then the firing 
ceased. Several men were sent forward to 
move the vehicle, and when they were within 
a few yards of it two Kafirs crept from under 
the duck covering, shook themselves, and walked 
away as if nothing had interrupted their sleep. 

In the Pretoria commando there was a young 
professional photographer named Reginald 
Sheppard who carried his camera and apparatus 
with him during the greater part of the cam- 
paign, and took photographs whenever he had 
an opportunity. On the morning of the Spion 
Kop fight, when the burghers were preparing 
to make the attack on the enem}^, Mr. Sheppard 
gathered all the burghers of the Carolina laager 
and posed them for a photograph. He was on 
the point of exposing the plate when a shrapnel 
shell exploded above the group, and every one 
fled. The camera was left behind and all the 
men went into the battle. In the afternoon 
when the engagement had ended, it was found 
that another shell had torn off one of the legs of 
the camera's tripod and that forty-three of the 
men who were in the group in the morning had 
been killed or wounded. Before the same battle 
one of the Boer generals asked Mr. Sheppard 
to photograph him, as he had had a premonition 
of death and he desired that his family should 



INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 



287 



have a good likeness of him. The general was 
in the heat of the fight, but he was not killed. 

While Ladysmith was being besieged by the 
Boers there were many interesting incidents in 
the laagers of the burghers, even if there was 
little of exciting interest. In the Staats Artillery 
there w^ere many young Boers who were con- 
stantly inventing new forms of amusement for 
themselves and the older burghers, and some 
of the games were as hazardous as they seemed 
to be interesting to the participants. 

The *' Long Tom " on Bulwana Hill was fired 
only when the burghers were in the mood, but 
occasionally the artillery youths desired to 
amuse themselves and then they operated the 
gun as rapidly as its mechanism would allow. 
When the big gun had been discharged the 
young Boers were wont to climb on the top of 
the sand bags behind which it was concealed 
and watch for the explosion of the shell in 
Ladysmith. After each shot from the Boer gun 
it was customary for the British to reply with 
one or more of their cannon and attempt to dis- 
lodge "Long Tom." After seeing the flash of 
the British guns the boy burghers on the sand 
bags waited until they heard the report of the 
explosion, then called out, '' I spy ! " as a warning 
that the shell would be coming along in two or 
three seconds, and quietly jumped down behind 
the bags while the missile passed over their 



288 THE BOERS IN WAR 

heads. It was a dangerous game, and the old 
burghers frequently warned them against play- 
ing it, but they continued it daily, and no one 
was ever injured. 

The men who operated the heliographs at 
the Tugela were a witty lot, and they frequently 
held long conversations with each other when 
there were no messages to be sent or received 
by their respective officers. In February the 
Boer operator signalled to the British operator 
on the other side of the river and asked : " When 
is General BuUer coming over here for that 
Christmas dinner? It is becoming cold and 
tasteless." The good-natured Briton evaded 
the question, and asked the Boer concerning the 
date of Paul Kruger's coronation as King of 
South Africa. The long-distance conversation 
continued in the same vein, each operator try- 
ing to have amusement at the expense of the 
other. What probably was the most mirth- 
provoking communication between the com- 
batants in the early part of the campaign was 
the letter which Colonel Baden-Powell sent to 
General Snyman, late in December, and the 
reply to it. Colonel Baden-Powell, in his letter, 
which was several thousand words in length, 
told his besieger that it was utter folly for the 
Boers to continue fighting such a great power 
as Great Britain, that the British army was in- 
vincible, that the Boers were fighting for an 



INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 289 

unjust cause, and that the British had the sym- 
pathy of the American nation. General Sny- 
man made a brief reply, the gist of which was, 
'' Come out and fight." 

The Earl of Rosslyn, who was captured by 
the Boers at the Moestershoek fight in the 
Free State in April, was the author of a large 
number of communications which were almost 
as mirthful as Colonel Baden-Powell's effort. 
When he was made a prisoner of war, Rosslyn 
had a diary filled with the most harrowing per- 
sonal experiences ever penned, and it was chiefly 
on that evidence that General De Wet sent him 
with the other prisoners to Pretoria. The earl 
protested against being sent to Pretoria, assert- 
ing that he was a war correspondent and a non- 
combatant, and despatched most pitiful tele- 
grams to Presidents Kruger and Steyn, State 
Secretary Reitz, and a host of other officials, 
demanding an instant release from custody. In 
the telegrams he stated that he was a peer of 
the realm ; that all doubts on that point could 
be dispelled by a reference to Burke's Peerage ; 
that he was not a fighting man ; that it would 
be disastrous to his reputation as a correspond- 
ent if he were not released in order that he 
might cable an exclusive account of the Moes- 
tershoek battle to his newspaper ; and finally 
ended by demanding his instant release and safe 
conduct to the British lines. The Boers installed 



290 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



the earl in the officers' prison, and printed his 
telegrams in the newspapers, with the result 
that Rosslyn was the most laughed-at man that 
appeared in the Boer countries during the 
whole course of the war. 

Several days before Commandant-General 
Joubert died he related an amusing story of an 
Irishman who was taken prisoner in one of the 
Natal battles. The Irishman was slightly wound- 
ed in one of his hands, and it was decided to 
send him to the British lines together with all 
the other wounded prisoners, but he refused to 
be sent back. After he had protested strenu- 
ously to several other Boer officers, the soldier 
was taken before General Joubert, who pointed 
out to him the advantages of being with his 
own people and the discomforts of a military 
prison. The Irishman Avould not waver in his 
determination, and finally exclaimed : '' I claim 
my rights as a prisoner of war, and refuse to 
allow myself to be sent back. I have a wife and 
two children in Ireland, and I know what is 
good for my health.'* The man was so obdu- 
rate. General Joubert said, that he could do 
nothing but send him to the Pretoria military 
prison. 

An incident of an almost similar nature oc- 
curred at the battle of Sannaspost, where the 
Boers captured almost two hundred wagons. 
Among the convoy was a Red Cross ambulance 




be 



a. 

o 



Oh 



20 



292 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



wagon filled with rifles and a small quantity of 
ammunition. The Boers unloaded the wagon, 
and then informed the physician in charge of it 
that he might proceed and rejoin the column to 
which he had been attached. The physician 
declined to move, and explained his action by 
saying that he had violated the laws of the 
international Red Cross, and would therefore 
consider himself and his assistant prisoners of 
war. General Christian De Wet would not 
accept them as prisoners, and trekked south- 
ward, leaving them behind to rejoin the British 
column several days afterward. 

During the war it was continually charged 
by both combatants that dum-dum bullets were 
being used, and undoubtedly there was ample 
foundation for the charges. Both Boers and 
British used that particular kind of expansive 
bullet, notwithstanding all the denials that were 
made in newspapers and orations. After the 
battle of Pieter's Hills, on February 28th, Dr. 
Krieger, General Meyer's staff physician, went 
into General Sir Charles Warren's camp for 
the purpose of exchanging wounded prisoners. 
After the interchange of prisoners had been ac- 
complished, General Warren produced a dum- 
dum bullet which had been found on a dead 
Boer's body, and, showing it to Dr. Krieger, 
asked him why the Boers used the variety of 
cartridge that was not sanctioned by the rules 



INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 



293 



of civilized warfare. Dr. Krieger took the car- 
tridge in his hand, and after examining it, re- 
turned it to Sir Charles with the remark that it 
was a British Lee-Metford dum-dum. General 
Warren seemed to be greatly nonplussed when 
several of his officers confirmed the physician's 
statement, and informed him that a large stock 
of dum-dum cartridges had been captured by 
the Boers at Dundee. It is an undeniable fact 
that the Boers captured thousands of rounds of 
dumdum cartridges which bore the ''broad 
arrow " of the British army, and used them in 
subsequent battles. It was stated in Pretoria 
that the Boers had a small stock of dum-dum 
ammunition which was kept back from the 
burghers at the front, at the request of Presi- 
dent Kruger, who strongly opposed the use of 
an expansive bullet in warfare. It was an easy 
matter, however, for the Boers to convert their 
ordinary Mauser cartridges into dum-dums by 
simply cutting off the point of the bullet, and 
this Avas occasionally done. 

One of the pluckiest men in the Boer army 
was Arthur Donnelly, a young Irish-American 
from San Francisco, who served in the Pretoria 
detective force for several years, and went to 
the war in one of the commandos under General 
Cronje. At the battle of Koodesberg Donnelly 
and Captain Higgins, of the Duke of Cornwall's 
regiment, both lay behind ant heaps several 



294 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



hundred yards apart, and engaged in a duel 
with carbines for almost an hour. After Don- 
nelly had fired seventeen shots Captain Higgins 
was fatally wounded by a bullet, and lifted his 
handkerchief in token of surrender. When the 
young Irish-American reached him the officer 
was bleeding profusely, and started to say, '' You 
were a better man than I," but he died in Don- 
nelly's arms before he could utter the last two 
words of the sentence. At Magersfontein Don- 
nelly was in a perilous position between the two 
forces, and realized that he could not escape 
being captured by the British. He saw a num- 
ber of cavalrymen sweeping down upon him, 
and started to run in an opposite direction. Be- 
fore he had proceeded a long distance he stum- 
bled across the corpse of a Red Cross physician, 
which lay partly concealed under tall grass. In 
a moment Donnelly had exchanged his own 
papers and credentials for those in the physician's 
pockets, and a minute later the cavalrymen were 
upon him. He was sent to Cape Town and 
confined in the prison ship Manila, from which 
he and two other Boers attempted to escape on 
New Year's night. One of the men managed 
to reach the water without being observed by 
the guards, and swam almost three miles to 
shore, but Donnelly and the other prisoner did 
not succeed in their project. Several days later 
he was released on account of his Red Cross 




>■ 



mt 





03 

a 

o 

a 

.2 

m 



296 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



credentials, and was sent to the British front to 
be delivered to the Boer commander. He was 
taken out under a flag of truce by several un- 
armed British officers, and several armed Boers 
went to receive him. While the transfer was 
being made a British horseman, with an order 
to the officers to hold the prisoner, dashed up 
to the group and delivered his message. The 
officers attempted to take Donnelly back to 
camp with them, but he refused to go, and, tak- 
ing one of the Boer's rifles, ordered them to 
return without him — a command which they 
obeyed with alacrity, in view of the fact that 
all of them were unarmed, while the Boers had 
carbines. 

When the British column under Colonel 
Broadwood left the village of Thaba N'Chu on 
March 30th all the British inhabitants were in- 
vited to accompany the force to Bloemfontein, 
where they might have the protection of a 
stronger part of the army. Among those who 
accepted the invitation were four women and 
four children, ranging in ages from sixteen 
months to fifteen years. When the column was 
attacked by the Boers at Sannaspost the follow- 
ing morning the women and children were sent 
by the Boers to a culvert in the incomplete rail- 
way line which crossed the battlefield, and they 
remained there during almost the entire engage- 
ment. They were in perfect safety, so far as 



INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 



297 



being actually out of the line of fire was con- 
cerned, but bullets and shells swept over and 
exploded near them, and they were in constant 
terror of being killed. The nervous tension 
was so great and continued for such a long 
time that one of the children, a twelve-year-old 
daughter of Mrs. J. Shaw McKinlay, became in- 
sane shortly after the battle was ended. 

An incident of the same fight was a duel be- 
tween two captains of the opposing forces. In 
the early part of the engagement the burghers 
and the soldiers were so close together that 
many hand-to-hand encounters took place, and 
many a casualty followed. Captain Scheppers, 
of the Boer heliographers, desired to make a 
prisoner ot a British captain and asked him 
to surrender. The British officer said that he 
would not be captured alive, drew his sword, 
and attempted to use it. The Boer grasped the 
blade and wrenched the sword from the officer's 
hand and knocked him off his horse. The 
Briton fired several revolver shots at Scheppers 
while the Boer was running a short distance for 
his carbine, but missed him. After Scheppers 
had secured his rifle the tAvo fired five or six 
shots at each other at a range of about ten yards, 
and with equal lack of skill missed. Finally, 
Scheppers hit the officer in the chest and laid 
him low. At the same time, near the same spot, 
two Boers called upon a recruit in Roberts's 



298 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



horse to surrender, but the young soldier was 
so thoroughly frightened that he held his rifle 
perpendicularly in front of him, and emptied 
the magazine toward the clouds. 

While the siege of Ladysmith was in prog- 
ress, Piet Boueer, of the Pretoria commando, 
made a remarkable shot, which was considered 
as the record during the Natal campaign. He 
and several other Boers were standing on one 
of the hills near the laager, when they ob- 
served three British soldiers emerging from one 
of the small forts on the outskirts of the city. 
The distance was about fourteen hundred yards, 
or almost one mile, but Boueer fired at the men, 
and the one who was walking between the others 
fell. The two fled to the fort, but returned to 
the spot a short time afterward, and the Boer 
fired at them a second time. The bullet raised 
a small cloud of dust between the men, and they 
did not return until night for their companion, 
who had undoubtedly been killed by the first 
shot. There were many other excellent marks- 
men in the Boer army whose ability was often 
demonstrated in the interim of battles. After 
1897 shooting clubs were organized at Pretoria, 
Potchefstroom, Krugersdorp, Klerksdorp, Jo- 
hannesburg, and Heidelberg, and frequent con- 
tests were held between the various organiza- 
tions. In the last contest before the war E. 
Blignaut, of Johannesburg, won the prize by 



INCIDENTS OF THE WAR 



299 



making one hundred and three out of a possible 
one hundred and five points, the weapon having 
been a Mauser at a range of seven hundred 
yards. These contests naturally developed many 
fine marksmen, and in consequence it was not 
considered an extraordinary feat for a man to 
kill a running hare at five hundred yards. While 
the Boers were waiting for Lord Roberts's ad- 
vance from Bloemfontein, Commandant Blig- 
naut, of the Transvaal, killed three running 
springbok at a range of more than seventeen 
hundred yards — a feat witnessed by a score of 
persons. 

The Boers were not without their periods of 
depression during the war, but when these had 
passed there were none who laughed more 
heartily over their actions during those periods 
than they. The first deep gloom that the Boers 
experienced was after the three great defeats 
at Paardeberg, Kimberley, and Lad3'Smith, and 
the minor reverses at Abraham's Kraal, Poplar 
Grove, and Bloemfontein. It was amusing, yet 
pitiful, to see an army lose all control of itself, 
and flee like wild animals before a forest fire. 
As soon as the fight at Poplar Grove was lost, 
the burghers mounted their horses and fled 
northward. President Kruger and the oflficers 
could do nothing but follow them. They passed 
through Bloemfontein and excited the popula- 
tion there ; then, evading roads and despising 



300 



THE BOERS IN WAR 



railway transportation, rode straight across the 
veld, and never drew rein until they reached 
Brandfort, more than thirty miles from Poplar 
Grove. Hundreds did not stop even at Brand- 
fort, but continued over the veld until they 
reached their homes in the north of the Free 
State and in the Transvaal. In their alarm they 
destroyed all the railway bridges and tracks as 
far north as Smaldeel, sixty miles from Bloem- 
fontein, and made their base at Kroonstad, al- 
most forty miles farther north. A week later a 
small number of the more daring burghers sal- 
lied toward Bloemfontein, and found that not 
a single British soldier was north of that city. 
So fearful were they of the British army before 
the discovery of their foolish flight, that two 
thousand British cavalrymen could hav^e sent 
them all across the Vaal River. 



THE END 



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w 



TWO TIMELY BOOKS. 



^^The True Story of the Boers/^ 

Oom Paul's People. 

By Howard C. Hillegas. With Illustrations. i zmo. 

Cloth, ^1.50. 

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entation of the Boer side of the controversy." — Chicago Tribune. 

Actual Africa ; or, The Coming Continent. 

A Tour of Exploration. By Frank Vincent. With Map 
and 104 full-page Illustrations. 8vo. Cloth, J55.00. 

Mr. Vincent s important and instructive book has a peculiar interest for 
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Transvaal. His visit to the Transvaal was followed by a journey through 
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ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE. 



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A Journey to the New Eldorado, With Hints to the Traveler 
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THREE IMPORTANT BOOKS. 



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Cannon and Camera. 

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whole war literature." — Boston Journal. 

Puerto Rico and its Resources. 

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Full Accounts of Natural Features and Resources, Prod- 
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'^Crusoe's Island," etc. With Map and Illustrations. 
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A WORK OF GREAT VALUE. 

The International Geography. 

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MCMASTER^S FIFTH VOLUME. 

History of the People of the United 
States. 

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THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES. 

Illustrated* J6mo» Cloth^ 40 cents per volume* 



NOTT READY. 

The Story of the Alphabet. By Edward Clodd. 

The Story of Eclipses. By G. F. Chambers. 

The Story of the Living Machine. By h. w. Conn. 
The Story of the British Race. By John munro, c. e. 
The Story of Geographical Discovery. By Joseph 

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The Story of the Mind. By Prof. J. mark Baldwin. 

The Story of Photography. By Alfred t. Story. 

The Story of Life in the Seas. By Sidney j. hickson. 

The Story of Germ Life. By Prof. h. w. conn. 

The Story of the Earth's Atmosphere. By Doug- 
las Archibald. 

The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the East. 

By Robert Anderson, M. A., F. A. S. 

The Story of Electricity. By John munro, c. e. 
The Story of a Piece of Coal. By e. a. martin, f.g.s. 
The Story of the Solar System. By c. f. Chambers, 

F. R. A. S. 

The Story of the Earth. By h. g. Seeley, f. r. s. 

The Story of the Plants. By grant Allen. 

The Story o^ '* P*-' rHve " Man. By Edward Clodd. 

The Story of the Stars. By G. F. Chambers, f. r. a. S. 
others in preparation. 

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